Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Na­pari­ma Rod­ney Charles is de­mand­ing that Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds and Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Amery Browne stop wast­ing time with point­less PR news con­fer­ences and use­less meet­ings and fo­cus in­stead on frontal­ly ad­dress­ing the is­sue of un­ac­cept­able lev­els of crime. 

He was re­fer­ring to the re­cent meet­ing be­tween US of­fi­cials and min­is­ter Hinds to dis­cuss the lat­est US Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry. 

In a press re­lease is­sued to­day, MP Charles stat­ed that "year af­ter year in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el ad­vi­sories warn cit­i­zens about trav­el­ling to TT due to ris­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty yet this ad­min­is­tra­tion does ab­solute­ly noth­ing to make TT any safer." 

The fol­low­ing is a press re­lease from MP Charles:  

MP Charles is de­mand­ing that Hinds and Browne stop wast­ing time with point­less PR news con­fer­ences and use­less meet­ings and fo­cus in­stead on frontal­ly ad­dress­ing the is­sue of un­ac­cept­able lev­els of crime.  

Un­less some­thing is done to dras­ti­cal­ly re­duce mur­ders, rob­beries and as­saults, what was the pur­pose of Hinds and Browne meet­ing Chargé d’Af­faires of the US Em­bassy Shan­té Moore to dis­cuss con­cerns about how the lat­est US Trav­el Ad­vi­so­ry is im­pact­ing TT?  

Are they more con­cerned with the op­tics rather than the re­al­i­ty of be­ing able to pro­tect both lo­cals and for­eign­ers in TT? Year af­ter year in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el ad­vi­sories warn cit­i­zens about trav­el­ling to TT due to ris­ing crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty yet this ad­min­is­tra­tion does ab­solute­ly noth­ing to make TT any safer. 

In fact, our po­si­tion is worse than it has ever been with po­ten­tial tourists be­ing told to avoid trav­el­ling here al­to­geth­er. The US State De­part­ment's job is to pro­tect US cit­i­zens and pro­vide all in­for­ma­tion need­ed for its cit­i­zens to make in­formed de­ci­sions about their trav­el.  

They have a sa­cred and con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­vide US cit­i­zens with a re­al­is­tic pic­ture of threats they may face here, not to sug­ar coat facts to please Row­ley, Hinds and Browne and the en­tire bunch of in­com­pe­tent PNM Cab­i­net Min­is­ters.  

While Hinds and Browne at­tempt to fool the pop­u­la­tion in­to think­ing they are do­ing some­thing to im­prove our po­si­tion, the mon­u­men­tal harm be­ing done to our in­ter­na­tion­al im­age due to their in­com­pe­tence is al­most be­yond re­pair and can­not be sug­ar coat­ed.  

Cana­da ad­vis­es its cit­i­zens, “Don’t walk alone at night… If pos­si­ble, avoid trav­el­ling out­side Port of Spain af­ter dark… Dri­ve with win­dows closed and doors locked... Home in­va­sions are com­mon and may turn vi­o­lent. Be aware that po­lice re­sponse of­ten takes time.” The UK warns its cit­i­zens, "there is a high and in­creas­ing lev­el of vi­o­lent crime in Trinidad, in­clud­ing gang-re­lat­ed in­ci­dents, par­tic­u­lar­ly in and around the city cen­tre of Port of Spain, in­clud­ing Laven­tille, Mor­vant and Barataria.  

Crime tends to oc­cur with­in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties but can some­times af­fect vis­i­tors." 

Sev­er­al oth­er coun­tries warn their cit­i­zens and po­ten­tial tourists that: “Shoot­ings, kid­nap­pings and oth­er gang and drug re­lat­ed vi­o­lence oc­cur,” and that “there is a risk of you be­ing in the wrong place at the wrong time.”  

Will Hinds and Browne al­so hold meet­ings with the nu­mer­ous oth­er coun­tries with sim­i­lar neg­a­tive ad­vi­sories? Are those coun­tries al­so wrong to ad­vise their cit­i­zens about the re­al­i­ties of crime in TT? This PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion can no longer fool the cit­i­zens of TT. Every­one knows that these ad­vi­sories are by and large fac­tu­al­ly cor­rect. Em­bassies do their own due dili­gence. They have boots on the ground in TT.  

They do not re­ly on lo­cal news or what the TT Gov­ern­ment or Op­po­si­tion say. Hinds should have told the US of his plans to frontal­ly ad­dress crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty and state the new poli­cies in place to en­sure the safe­ty of cit­i­zens and tourists. He should have pro­vid­ed mea­sur­able, time bound and re­as­sur­ing crime re­duc­tion tar­gets.  

This PNM Gov­ern­ment has re­peat­ed­ly failed to mount ef­fec­tive da­ta dri­ven re­spons­es to the pletho­ra of in­ter­na­tion­al trav­el bul­letins warn­ing vis­i­tors about our un­ac­cept­ably high crime rates. It is now clear that Row­ley, Hinds and Browne are ill serv­ing the needs of our coun­try.  

While Mia Mot­t­ley is be­ing tout­ed as a pos­si­ble UN Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary, we are busy try­ing to get the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty to not talk about our crime sit­u­a­tion. Row­ley, Hinds and Browne are es­sen­tial­ly shame­less cat­a­lysts in our in­ex­orable de­cline to failed state sta­tus lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly. The time has come for them to do the ho­n­ourable thing, and con­sis­tent with pa­tri­ot­ic re­quire­ments giv­en our de­press­ing cir­cum­stances - im­me­di­ate­ly re­sign and call fresh elec­tions. We just can­not go on this way