Geisha Kow­lessar

Fresh con­cerns have sur­faced in the Po­lice Ser­vice as there seems to be a grow­ing rift be­tween first and sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers in the face of mount­ing crit­i­cism lev­elled against pres­i­dent of the Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, Sgt Anand Rame­sar.Rame­sar was thrown in­to the spot­light with­in re­cent weeks fol­low­ing al­le­ga­tions there were no East In­di­ans on the Po­lice Ser­vice Pro­mo­tions Ad­vi­so­ry Board.

Rame­sar and the as­so­ci­a­tion's sec­re­tary, Sgt Michael Seales, al­so al­leged se­nior po­lice of­fi­cers were tak­ing bribes in ex­change for grant­i­ng Firearm Users' Li­cences (FUL). But ac­cord­ing to the for­mer as­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cpl Em­rol Bruce the uni­ty en­joyed be­tween first and sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers was now in jeop­ardy.And if there ex­ist­ed dis­uni­ty among the ranks, Bruce warned of a domi­no ef­fect, say­ing the en­tire Po­lice Ser­vice body could now be in trou­ble.He added: "When we, as po­lice of­fi­cers, don't stand to­geth­er and op­er­ate pro­fes­sion­al­ly then the en­tire body of the Po­lice Ser­vice would be in trou­ble.

"How would there be true har­mo­ny among the ranks?" Bruce ques­tioned.He said pri­or to 2005 the as­so­ci­a­tion com­prised two sep­a­rate bar­gain­ing units, one to ne­go­ti­ate terms and con­di­tions for first di­vi­sion of­fi­cers and an­oth­er for sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers."The seg­re­ga­tion was so bad that in the days of for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Jules Bernard there was one el­e­va­tor for first di­vi­sion of­fi­cers and an­oth­er for sec­ond di­vi­sion of­fi­cers (at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain).

"It took years to erad­i­cate that kind of think­ing and be­hav­iour and cre­ate uni­ty among all ranks but now that it is in jeop­ardy," Bruce said.He said the con­sen­sus was that be­cause of state­ments made by Rame­sar, of­fi­cers now be­lieved the process should be re­vert­ed to fa­cil­i­tate sep­a­rate bar­gain­ing pow­ers for each di­vi­sion."Rame­sar is the of­fi­cial voice for both first and sec­ond di­vi­sions but he has cre­at­ed dis­uni­ty and mem­bers have lost faith in him be­cause he made those spu­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions."So much so that there is the grow­ing feel­ing among po­lice of­fi­cers that each di­vi­sion should now have sep­a­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion as it was be­fore," Bruce main­tained.He said "more and more mem­bers" were clam­our­ing to have Rame­sar re­moved.

Ur­gent need to dis­cuss race

As the dis­con­tent among po­lice of­fi­cers seems to grow, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath is call­ing for an ur­gent de­bate on race re­la­tions.De­mand­ing that some­body "start the de­bate" Ra­goonath said: "I think it is go­ing to cause more and more peo­ple to ral­ly so that their voic­es be heard."We need to dis­cuss race re­la­tions in gen­er­al and not in a lim­it­ed sense, in a gen­er­al sense that would al­so in­clude the Po­lice Ser­vice," Ra­goonath said.He said the de­bate al­so must be per­formed in a "mea­sured" way so it did not blow out of con­trol.