We are un­der a state of emer­gency with a cur­few in force in cer­tain "hot-spot" ar­eas. All well and good. There is some­thing that is in ur­gent need of at­ten­tion while the se­cu­ri­ty forces and the elite mem­bers of the PP ad­min­is­tra­tion pon­der fur­ther moves in deal­ing with the sit­u­a­tion of ram­pant crime and crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in many parts of T&T. It may be a use­ful ex­er­cise on the part of the se­cu­ri­ty forces and those re­spon­si­ble for the na­tion's se­cu­ri­ty to ad­dress the is­sue of the catch­ing Mr Big, a per­son so eu­phemisti­cal­ly iden­ti­fied by our pre­vi­ous Prime Min­is­ter in one of his procla­ma­tions and pos­si­ble tirades when and while he was cod­dling "com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers."

I be­lieve that an in­ter­view with the for­mer PM could lead to­wards a gold mine of in­for­ma­tion or put such non­sense to rest. In which case the au­thor­i­ties should just lock up the for­mer PM for deal­ing in mis­chief and mis­lead­ing the pub­lic, de­flect­ing our at­ten­tion away from se­ri­ous so­lu­tions then and plac­ing the coun­try in se­ri­ous jeop­ardy now. The ut­ter­ances of the for­mer PM must and should, un­con­di­tion­al­ly, at­tract the at­ten­tion of the se­cu­ri­ty ma­chin­ery, if on­ly to get at the bot­tom of the ra­tio­nale that caused such a de­c­la­ra­tion in the first place.

Af­ter all, the of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter is not to be tak­en light­ly in any era, tran­quil times or chaot­ic times. De­c­la­ra­tions and pro­nounce­ments com­ing out of such high of­fice are al­ways to be tak­en seri- ous­ly, de­serv­ing of the ut­most at­ten­tion and at­tri­tion. Use this emer­gency pe­ri­od to ask the gen­tle­man in ques­tion some search­ing ques­tions and, from the re­spons­es, let the chips fall where they may. Does the man know or does he not know? That's the ques­tion he is to an­swer, once and for all.

Michael Cory­at

Cas­cade