UNC St Joseph candidate Ahloy Hunt talks patriotism, crime

UNC candidate for St Joseph retired Lt Col Ahloy Hunt Jr took the campaign platform for the first time on Thursday evening last week, speaking during the party’s virtual campaign meeting On The Ballot. The theme of his presentation was patriotism and crime fighting.

Hunt questioned whether those running the country were patriotic. He said while there were many definitiions of patriotism, the ones that resonated with him were the deep love of country of someone who is willing to sacrifice his/her life to protect the sovereignty of the country and its citizens. He said the actions of individuals showed their patriotism.

“An example of a true patriot is someone who places themselves in the line of fire daily in service to country, who will go above and beyond the call of duty to serve the citizens of his or her country, someone who leaves their family in the face of impending disaster and reports for duty.

"A person who is unpatriotic is willing to compromise the wellbeing of TT by inviting possible sanctions, by knowingly allowing sanctioned individuals from another country to visit TT, especially when our borders were closed, a person who knowingly gives false explanations of serious national events and is exposed by way of substantial evidence revealing complicity and attempts to blatantly cover up the truth.”

He said these actions were a dereliction of the roles and responsibilities of the office of national security. He gave other examples of non-patriotism.

“An example is the letter approved for the visit of sanctioned vice president of Venezuela Delcy Rodriguez by none other than the current 'minister of cricket.'

"Failing to devise appropriate measures and initiatives to effectively reduce the high murder rate, causing TT to be consistently ranked as one of the most violent countries in the world.

"Preventing citizens from returning to TT under the guise of pandemic measures.

"Every day the MIA (missing in action) MP was boasting of how prepared they were to treat with a possible outbreak of the pandemic, yet many citizens were marooned instead of being allowed to return and undergo the quarantine measures formulated by our brave medical practitioners.”

The MP for St Jospeh is Health Minister Terrence Deyalsingh.

Hunt also said if crime is to be fought successfully, crime-fighting measures and public policy must be implemented. He said criminology, including critical criminology, which is about class conflict and structured inequalities of class societies, should be used to understand TT’s dynamic crime situation and create crime-fighting measures.

He outlined seven measures which would be employed to bring immediate relief to the serious crime wave should the UNC win office.

These were:

zoning based on special analysis of murders and other serious crimes;

random polygraphing to be made mandatory for all security personnel;

equipping the civil authority with key crime-fighting tools such as purpose-built armoured patrol vehicles and armoured personnel carriers, equipped with automated weapons, for patrolling high-crime areas and hotspots;

immediate formulation and implementation of a comprehensive patrolling initiative using UAVs, drones, surveillance with purpose-built cause effect helos, mobile feed, satellite patrols, foot patrols, and an army of surveillance operatives;

instituting performance metrics for all national security agencies;

complete the implementation of first-world access control systems at all ports of entry;

formulating special groupings in high-crime police divisions to amplify special "snap and deliberate" operations to consistently disrupt organised crime and criminal networks while apprehending hardened criminals.

Hunt also greeted residents of Bamboo Settlement No 1, Aranguez, Farm Road, Silver Mill and Upper Mendes Drive in St Joseph. where he had recently done walkabouts.

He said he would soon be able to either drastically reduce or eliminate the issue of dry taps, flooding from dry taps, and rivers, inadequate street lighting, bad roads, crime, and the number one complaint of poor representation by an MIA MP.