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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Sea Lots community on the edge after human bones find

by

Joshua Seemungal
486 days ago
20240310

Whether there is enough na­tion­al hon­esty or self-aware­ness to ad­mit it or not, Sea Lots rarely comes to the fore­front of the coun­try’s col­lec­tive con­scious­ness –and when it does, it is more of­ten than not through tragedy, con­tro­ver­sy, crim­i­nal­i­ty or po­lit­i­cal con­ve­nience.

The Feb­ru­ary 2013 deaths of 28-year-old Haydee Paul and her two daugh­ters Shaki­ra and Akasha, who were run in­to by a ve­hi­cle dri­ven by an off-du­ty po­lice of­fi­cer, comes to mind, as does the Ju­ly 2019 clash­es be­tween some res­i­dents and po­lice in the af­ter­math of the po­lice killing of for­mer gang leader Aki­ni ‘Dole’ Adams, and the June 2020 Port-of-Spain protests fol­low­ing the po­lice killing of three men in Mor­vant.

Last week, the dis­cov­ery of a grave­yard of hu­man re­mains on Dog Is­land re­turned the com­mu­ni­ty to the head­lines.

In the back­drop of Sea Lots’ tight­ly-choked net­work of sin­gle-storey con­crete homes and wood­en shacks, the hub of the coun­try’s econ­o­my, the Er­ic Williams Fi­nan­cial Com­plex, tow­ers over Port-of-Spain.

The com­mu­ni­ty in the Twin Tow­ers’ shad­ows out­dates it by more than 150 years.

Ac­cord­ing to late his­to­ri­ans Dr Ger­ard Besson and An­ge­lo Besses­sars­ingh, fol­low­ing the British con­quest of 1797, Port-of-Spain’s pop­u­la­tion boomed, re­sult­ing in a des­per­ate need for more land. In 1803, British Gov­er­nor Sir Thomas Pic­ton im­ple­ment­ed a land recla­ma­tion scheme af­ter the di­ver­sion of the St Ann’s Riv­er. The turn of the riv­er’s course left tidal mud­flats that were then filled over two decades with lime­stone car­ried by mules from the Laven­tille Hills, cre­at­ing Sea Lots.

The com­mu­ni­ty was an ini­tia­tive to of­fer cheap wa­ter­front prop­er­ties to en­cour­age com­merce.

“There has been a lot of de­vel­op­ment over the years, but of course, there is still pover­ty. We are liv­ing pay­cheque by pay­cheque, but not every­body has that op­por­tu­ni­ty or hav­ing mon­ey com­ing in,” 62-year-old life­long res­i­dent He­len told Guardian Me­dia.

As one goes deep­er through the nar­row, snaking lanes of Pi­o­neer Dri­ve in Sea Lots West, pierc­ing eyes from young men on the block ex­am­ine ve­hi­cles and their oc­cu­pants. Us­ing walkie-talkies, the scouts alert oth­ers of any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty. While this may seem strange in many com­mu­ni­ties, in Sea Lots it is a norm es­tab­lished to check out po­ten­tial threats.

The sig­nif­i­cant num­ber of men sit­ting on chairs or walls in the al­leys at 10.30 am is no­tice­able, and so too is the num­ber of women in lime green CEPEP uni­forms. Al­most all of the women in the uni­forms, we were told, are sin­gle moth­ers. Al­most all of the young men, we were al­so told, are un­em­ployed.

Any jour­nal­ist asked to in­ter­view peo­ple from ‘hotspots’ knows the dif­fi­cul­ty of the task. It is not on­ly oner­ous to get peo­ple to trust the me­dia to speak, it is al­so ex­ceed­ing­ly chal­leng­ing to please every­one with a sto­ry. Hav­ing a team mem­ber known by some in the com­mu­ni­ty of­fers con­sid­er­able help with the for­mer. Thank­ful­ly, we had that help.

Af­ter a short con­ver­sa­tion, our pho­tog­ra­ph­er se­cures the first in­ter­view with who was pre­sumed to be a com­mu­ni­ty leader. Dressed in short black pants and a white cot­ton vest, the in­ter­vie­wee–who we will call Sean–had tight, new­ly done corn­rows, chis­elled cheek­bones and long dark eye­lash­es. Near his left eye were three teardrop tat­toos and along his arms were no­tice­able scars that looked like healed gun­shot or stab wounds. Sit­ting un­der a tent on a chair, the four men around him seemed to re­spect him as an au­thor­i­ty. Wel­com­ing, he was more than will­ing to dis­cuss life in Sea Lots.

“We have a com­mit­tee which we call Pos­i­tive Vibes, try­ing to save the youths from crime and the streets, but there’s on­ly so much we can do. We would re­al­ly like that strength, that sup­port be­cause I be­lieve that every youth in every ghet­to in Trinidad and To­ba­go has some­thing good.

“A woman does have it so hard when she has three youths to feed and ed­u­cate and show a bet­ter way. When you don’t have a fa­ther fig­ure in a youth life and it is the moth­er alone, it is ex­tra hard. These peo­ple com­ing in here, they talk about sports and all kinds of things for the youth, but they not ful­fill­ing what they talk about. It’s on­ly when elec­tions come or some kind of elec­tion cam­paign that they come and hear the prob­lems or so­lu­tions. They get so­lu­tions al­so. When you go to a com­mu­ni­ty and hear so­lu­tions, you need to take them se­ri­ous­ly,” Sean said ar­tic­u­late­ly in a deep voice.

‘They on­ly need us for cer­tain pur­pos­es–vot­ing’

He be­lieves po­lit­i­cal par­ties are out of touch with the re­al­i­ties of T&T, es­pe­cial­ly in ‘hotspot’ com­mu­ni­ties. As a re­sult of the dis­con­nect, he said, more and more youth are be­ing lost to the gangs. He said crit­i­cal in­ter­ven­tions at the com­mu­ni­ty lev­el are need­ed, as suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments failed to act over the years, re­sult­ing in a so­cial cri­sis.

He was al­so crit­i­cal of the ap­proach po­lice of­fi­cers take in the com­mu­ni­ty. Sean claimed that in the af­ter­math of the dis­cov­ery of hu­man re­mains on Dog Is­land, every­one was be­ing treat­ed like crim­i­nals. The com­mu­ni­ty is ac­cus­tomed to that sort of treat­ment, he said, cre­at­ing anger, in a sense, to­wards those in au­thor­i­ty.

“We can’t save every­body, we are not God. But when you grow up in pover­ty ... Pover­ty is the out­break of crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is the num­ber one prob­lem that caus­es crime in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And the Gov­ern­ment now, with all the mil­lions in ex­pen­di­ture in Par­lia­ment, you does see them, what is the Gov­ern­ment do­ing for youths and them in re­mote ar­eas like these?

“We are cre­at­ing a prob­lem we can­not con­trol in the end. The Gov­ern­ment is the main fac­tor be­cause they are not in­volv­ing them­selves. They want to come now, when they al­low it, and re­alise when it is out of con­trol to come now, and it is the in­no­cent pay­ing for it, you un­der­stand what I show­ing yah?

“Be­cause when you come in­to a com­mu­ni­ty, every­body is not crim­i­nals. We come like we are the out­casts of so­ci­ety, you un­der­stand? No­body turns an eye. They on­ly need us for cer­tain pur­pos­es–vot­ing etc, be­cause we are the peo­ple, the poor peo­ple are the ma­jor­i­ty of votes in the coun­try,” he said over the voic­es from his walkie-talkie.

‘Hate breed­ing’

In the pres­ence of in­creas­ing pover­ty and an ac­com­pa­ny­ing prej­u­dice against those in the com­mu­ni­ty, he said there was hate breed­ing–one that is boil­ing over on the streets. And he sees the hate tak­ing hold of peo­ple over­whelmed by their cir­cum­stances.

“Some­times them youth and them might want to go to school. I might see four or five of them stay home. Why yuh ain’t go to school? They don’t have any mon­ey to go to school. And I might as­sist in what­ev­er way I could, but I too catch­ing my ar­se.

“The Gov­ern­ment not see­ing that. They not see­ing the big­ger pic­ture. They want to curb crime and they feel the force is the on­ly al­ter­na­tive to curb crime and it is not. The Gov­ern­ment has the role of ed­u­cat­ing the peo­ple in these com­mu­ni­ties be­cause some of them, plen­ty of them, are un­e­d­u­cat­ed. So they al­low the youths to grow and as they reach 14 or 15, they are pick­ing up a gun. Al­lyuh not bring­ing no sports. We want bas­ket­ball. We want foot­ball. It have youths with re­al tal­ent and all this tal­ent just go­ing to waste. It have some youths, I will tell you, when you see them play foot­ball and bas­ket­ball, you will be amazed,” Sean said.

The dis­trust of au­thor­i­ty is ev­i­dent.

Over in Sea Lots East, on the oth­er side of the riv­er, the young men on the block were less will­ing to speak. A com­mu­ni­ty leader was seat­ed along­side six or sev­en bare­backed young men at the end of an al­ley on Pro­duc­tion Dri­ve. The leader dons a large gold chain and two of the men around him look no old­er than 16 years. To their left, in a house that ap­pears con­sid­er­ably more op­u­lent than any oth­er house in the com­mu­ni­ty, a group of oth­er young men drink­ing, smok­ing and lis­ten­ing to loud mu­sic look on cu­ri­ous­ly from a pa­tio. Af­ter the “boss” de­clines to speak, we left. As we walk away, the boss tells one of the oth­er men, “We have noth­ing to talk to them about.”

The dis­trust of the me­dia was ev­i­dent.

No school, hun­gry bel­lies for chil­dren

Walk­ing fur­ther along Pi­o­neer Dri­ve in Sea Lots West, through the nar­row in­ter­con­nect­ing al­leys, to­wards the Com­mu­ni­ty Im­pact and Home­work Cen­tre, there are at least 15 chil­dren home from school. We were told that while some chil­dren dropped out of school dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic, many of the stu­dents had no class­es then be­cause of vary­ing is­sues.

The chil­dren roam the al­leys, just out­side of their fam­i­ly homes, play­ing with oth­er chil­dren. The cries and shouts of oth­er chil­dren are al­so heard from be­hind the gal­vanised fences of oth­er homes along the walk­ways.

A 14-year-old, who we will call Ryan, is at home. He said his class­es at Rus­sel Lat­apy Sec­ondary School were can­celled. He lives in a one-bed­room board house with his moth­er and sib­lings near the riv­er sep­a­rat­ing Sea Lots West and Dog Is­land. When we asked him how many sib­lings he has, he said, “I can’t check.”

There was a dis­turb­ing sense of melan­choly to Ryan. His eyes ap­peared hol­low, while he was de­void of en­er­gy. His fa­cial mus­cles drooped, as if they had for­got­ten how to be used to smile. When asked, he con­fessed that there are morn­ings, many morn­ings, he wakes up and has noth­ing to eat.

“My moth­er does strug­gle for we to get mon­ey for we to go to school. She work­ing CEPEP right around here and that’s the salary she does get at the end of the fort­night.

“We need help with get­ting gro­ceries. Mon­ey for school. Things for my sis­ter to eat. Things for she to go to school. Re­al things we have to get help with. We house had burn down over there the last time,” he said, adding that he dreams of be­ing a po­lice­man.

Asked if his cir­cum­stances make him an­gry, he nod­ded to say yes.

The ten-year-old son of an­oth­er CEPEP work­er from Sea Lots East was al­so home for the day. His moth­er–who we will call Ali­cia–claimed he had been home sev­er­al times dur­ing the last few months. She claimed his school, Ex­cel Beetham Es­tate Gov­ern­ment, had been af­fect­ed by wa­ter and elec­tric­i­ty is­sues.

“They let­ting chil­dren come to school for half a day and as I said, we are sin­gle moth­ers, we don’t have mon­ey to send them to school for half a day be­cause you have to find mon­ey the next day, for the next half day.

“Help out the youths, give them a lit­tle stipend and a lit­tle job train­ing, you give them that to do. Try and help out some of the sin­gle moth­ers. It have sin­gle moth­ers who are strug­gling right now to make ends meet and that’s the next prob­lem,” the moth­er of five and grand­moth­er of 16 lament­ed.

School at­ten­dance wor­ry­ing

Ac­cord­ing to an Ed­u­ca­tion Min­istry as­sess­ment of teacher and stu­dent at­ten­dance at pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools be­tween Jan­u­ary 22 and Jan­u­ary 26, 2024, there was a 99 per cent dai­ly turnout of teach­ers at Ex­cel Beetham Es­tate Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School. The school is in clos­est prox­im­i­ty to Sea Lots and chil­dren from the com­mu­ni­ty can at­tend class­es there.

There was a 34 per cent av­er­age dai­ly at­ten­dance by pupils–the low­est of all pri­ma­ry schools in the coun­try.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, Chris, in his late 20s, be­fore head­ing off to work, stopped to speak with us. He lament­ed that so many chil­dren had dropped out of school over the last few years. He be­lieves that too many young peo­ple seem to have noth­ing to do in the com­mu­ni­ty.

“I am a young per­son my­self and when I see my fel­low young peo­ple and them go­ing astray be­cause it have noth­ing re­al­ly im­ple­ment­ed for them, you get wor­ried.

“I find a lot of things the Gov­ern­ment im­ple­ments, some of the things not re­al­ly work­ing for the com­mu­ni­ty be­cause we have a lot of peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty here and it doesn’t have any op­por­tu­ni­ties for them. I think the Gov­ern­ment has to do some­thing se­ri­ous.

“Some things were be­ing done by the Gov­ern­ment and it was work­ing, but then it came and stopped. Like when it had the class­es, it was work­ing but then the pro­gramme came and stopped be­cause the fund­ing stopped, so when that stopped, that was it. I be­lieve that we, as a com­mu­ni­ty too, could do some­thing about it. If we look to straight­en up our­selves and bet­ter our­selves too,” he said.

2015 Na­tion­al Crime & Vic­tim­i­sa­tion Sur­vey

In the Na­tion­al Crime & Vic­tim­i­sa­tion Sur­vey 2015, con­duct­ed by Qure Lim­it­ed un­der the com­mis­sion of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, 74.5 per cent of peo­ple in­ter­viewed from Sea Lots said they knew some­one who was threat­ened by a gun or gang vi­o­lence or was shot/shot at. That was the largest per­cent­age of all com­mu­ni­ties. 12.1 per cent of re­spon­dents in Sea Lots re­port­ed that they were shot at or threat­ened by a gun or gang. That was the high­est per­cent­age along­side Laven­tille. All of the peo­ple in­ter­viewed in Sea Lots be­lieved it was some­times nec­es­sary for peo­ple to car­ry a gun, join a gang, co­op­er­ate with a gang or keep qui­et about a gang.

What’s the Gov­ern­ment’s plans

In Jan­u­ary, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­vealed that $100 mil­lion will be al­lo­cat­ed to de­vel­op cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties af­fect­ed by high lev­els of crime. He said the fund­ing will be used by the T&T De­fence Force to re­train and hire of­fi­cers to go in­to the at-risk com­mu­ni­ties.

“Where se­cu­ri­ty has to be on the street, it is there and when peo­ple can re­ly on them (TTDF) and not the lo­cal don who be­lieves that they are some­how big­ger than the Gov­ern­ment and the peo­ple of T&T,” he said at a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing.

Be­fore that, in Ju­ly 2020, Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley an­nounced the for­ma­tion of a Com­mu­ni­ty Re­cov­ery Com­mit­tee in the af­ter­math of com­mu­ni­ty un­rest in East Port-of-Spain, fol­low­ing the shoot­ing deaths of three men in Mor­vant by po­lice of­fi­cers. The com­mit­tee, led by Dr An­tho­ny Watkins, was giv­en a man­date to ex­am­ine is­sues of at-risk youth and fac­tors neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ing com­mu­ni­ties.


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