Gail Alexan­der

The time for talk is over and ac­tion is need­ed on the crime cri­sis.

“This sit­u­a­tion is af­fect­ing busi­ness and mi­gra­tions are oc­cur­ring,” T&T Cham­ber CEO Gabriel Faria said yes­ter­day.

“Whether the rea­son for killings and oth­er neg­a­tive de­vel­op­ments is gang-re­lat­ed or oth­er crim­i­nal pur­pos­es, the pop­u­la­tion is be­ing taxed to the brink.

“In the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion, peo­ple take less com­fort to know some­thing is gang-re­lat­ed or oth­er rea­sons when what they want so­lu­tions.”

The Cham­ber CEO ex­pressed deep con­cern at the crime sit­u­a­tion as up to yes­ter­day the mur­der toll had reached ap­prox­i­mate­ly 71—46 mur­ders in Jan­u­ary and the rest this month. He won­dered what is Gov­ern­ment’s crime plan.

“We’re in a cri­sis. We recog­nise a plan can’t be de­vel­oped overnight but cer­tain things can be done with avail­able re­sources. Why aren’t we see­ing in­creased use of the De­fence Force at least?” Faria asked.

“Our mem­bers, as well as non-mem­bers, tell us they see no army pres­ence in their ar­eas un­less sol­diers are un­der­cov­er. We had been told at one point that 50 per cent of the De­fence Force is as­sist­ing po­lice.

“How­ev­er, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er said dur­ing a Par­lia­men­tary com­mit­tee meet­ing that the Army’s in­put was less than 500. In Trinidad and To­ba­go’s dire predica­ment, we have to stop pro­tect­ing our turf and act.

“At this point, where Trinidad and To­ba­go’s im­age has be­come one of an in­creas­ing­ly-vi­o­lent coun­try, peo­ple aren’t dwelling as much on what’s caus­ing it as on the need to have some­thing done.

“That in­volves mo­bil­is­ing re­sources ap­pro­pri­ate­ly. I don’t think it’s con­so­la­tion to the fam­i­lies of mur­der vic­tims—and it doesn’t pro­vide any as­sur­ance of safe­ty to any­one else—that a sit­u­a­tion was gang-re­lat­ed.

“All the fam­i­ly will know is their broth­er or son or moth­er or fa­ther is dead.

“The over­all sit­u­a­tion is im­pact­ing busi­ness. At a func­tion on Tues­day, a busi­ness­man re­vealed to us a rob­bery at­tempt was made on his home when his fam­i­ly was there.

“He said they’re mi­grat­ing since the sit­u­a­tion now isn’t worth it. That sort of sen­ti­ment is in­creas­ing.”

Op­po­si­tion MP Gan­ga Singh, not­ing that mur­der is the most se­ri­ous crime, added: “Gov­ern­ment ap­pears chal­lenged in the face of the mur­der­ous on­slaught and ap­pears to have sur­ren­dered to the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go seem on the verge of a takeover by that el­e­ment giv­en the fact there had been over 2,000 mur­ders pre­vi­ous­ly.

“There used to be the feel­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go that on­ly those in­volved in crime and gang-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty are at risk. That no longer seems to be the case.

“The at­mos­phere of in­creas­ing crime has cre­at­ed fear that in this new nor­mal sit­u­a­tion any­one can be­come col­lat­er­al dam­age.

“If the sit­u­a­tion is gang-re­lat­ed, then there must be clear an­swers on what’s be­ing done to get it un­der con­trol and re­store some sense of se­cu­ri­ty in com­mu­ni­ties.

“Once this is lost, it’s hard to re­gain. This is the end of the term, peo­ple aren’t wait­ing very long for an­swers.”