Rhon­dor Dowlat

Two busi­ness com­mu­ni­ties are call­ing Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon to fix crime in T&T first be­fore sit­ting with min­is­ters from across the re­gion to deal with the mat­ter.

The call came on the heels of Dil­lon's an­nounce­ment Mon­day that T&T would be host­ing the XII Con­fer­ence of De­fence Min­is­ters of the Amer­i­c­as (CD­MA) in Oc­to­ber.

Pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce, Richie Sookhai, called on the Gov­ern­ment to talk crime first with all lo­cal stake­hold­ers from com­mu­ni­ties be­fore sit­ting in on the up­com­ing $9 mil­lion con­fer­ence.

"An­oth­er mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar talk shop will yield no re­sults if cit­i­zens are faced with deaf ears," Sookhai said in a re­lease.

With the num­ber of mur­ders at 290 and count­ing, he said the coun­try need­ed to find out why crime-fight­ing ini­tia­tives had failed.

"We are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment and the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice to be­gin im­me­di­ate­ly con­ver­sa­tions with the com­mu­ni­ties and all stake­hold­ers on how the can­cer of crime can be curbed.

"We be­lieve that it is on­ly through com­mu­ni­ca­tion that a com­pre­hen­sive, mul­ti-faceted, in­no­v­a­tive and work­able crime plan can be ini­ti­at­ed that will ad­dress the mul­ti­ple needs of the coun­try when it comes to ad­dress­ing se­cu­ri­ty is­sues," Sookhai said

He added it was ev­i­dent the crime plans of T&T's law en­force­ment bod­ies were not yield­ing de­sired re­sults.

High­light­ing last Fri­day's mur­der of nine-year-old Cy­on Paul of La Ro­maine, Sookhai said: "The mur­der of nine-year old Cy­on Paul, who died from a sin­gle bul­let to the heart while he and his fam­i­ly were on their way to buy food, is tes­ti­mo­ny of the dark­ness that has be­fall­en this na­tion.

"Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon has said the crime epi­dem­ic is 'in­tol­er­a­ble' but ex­pres­sions of dis­may are not enough. We need to see con­crete ini­tia­tives and plans be­ing en­act­ed so that our cit­i­zens can be­gin to feel a sense of se­cu­ri­ty while go­ing about their busi­ness in this coun­try."

Sookhai al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment that Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in his ca­pac­i­ty as the head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, was not more vo­cal in at least pro­vid­ing com­fort through his own as­sur­ances to the peo­ple.

"But we are cog­nizant of the fact that the Prime Min­is­ter has been deal­ing with his own health is­sues and are pleased that he has been giv­en a clean bill of health by his doc­tors.

"We are hope­ful that now that his per­son­al health is­sues have been dealt with that he and the Gov­ern­ment will be bet­ter ready and able to ad­dress the fears of the na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty," he added.

Cou­va Cham­ber of Com­merce pres­i­dent Li­aquat Ali al­so said he was con­cerned with the es­ca­lat­ing crime and be­lieved the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties should get their act to­geth­er and deal with the sit­u­a­tion.

Ali, how­ev­er, shared mixed views on the up­com­ing con­fer­ence.

He said: "Whilst it is good for the Gov­ern­ment to deal with crime first­ly, it is al­so good for the Gov­ern­ment to know what oth­er coun­tries are do­ing to help curb the crime sit­u­a­tion in their re­spec­tive coun­tries so that, at the same time, we can try and do the same in the fight against crime.

"We must un­der­stand that crim­i­nal el­e­ments in so­ci­ety, es­pe­cial­ly guns and drugs, are not re­lat­ed to T&T. So where is it com­ing from? So we need this in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­ven­tion to dis­cuss this to tack­le the crime sit­u­a­tion."

How­ev­er, he said he hoped Dil­lon would get mean­ing­ful con­tri­bu­tions to crime-fight­ing mea­sures that T&T could take and mod­i­fy.

Pres­i­dent of the Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion, Gre­go­ry Aboud, said the ques­tions aris­ing in re­la­tion to the con­fer­ence and its cost seemed to be re­lat­ed to the rapid­ly di­min­ish­ing cred­i­bil­i­ty of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies in T&T.

He said: "We are go­ing through a process of in­con­sis­tent com­ments that have been the usu­al pro­nounce­ment of min­is­ters who were giv­en the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­tect­ing the cit­i­zens.

"On the one hand we are be­ing told that crim­i­nals will be made un­com­fort­able and will feel the full brunt of the law while on the oth­er hand chil­dren are be­ing mur­dered and crim­i­nals are post­ing them­selves on so­cial me­dia with high-pow­ered weapons and am­mu­ni­tion.

"This, in our opin­ion, is at the heart of the ques­tions that are be­ing raised about this con­fer­ence and this is go­ing to con­tin­ue un­til we start solv­ing the sav­age mur­ders and the grue­some killings which are oc­cur­ring every sin­gle day."

The con­fer­ence, which will run from oc­to­ber 11-12, will fea­ture coun­tries and will fos­ter mu­tu­al knowl­edge, analy­sis, de­bate and ex­change of ideas and ex­pe­ri­ences on de­fence and se­cu­ri­ty, Dil­lon said dur­ing Mon­day's launch.

It is be­ing host­ed at a time when the Cari­com re­gion and the rest of the hemi­sphere face com­mon threats to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty which re­quire col­lab­o­ra­tion and co-op­er­a­tion among hemi­spher­ic part­ners.