Kamla calls for SoE, asks: Who is giving boys guns?

OPPOSITION Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar has asked who are the people putting guns into the hands of the young men who are perpetrating violent criminal acts in Trinidad and Tobago.

Addressing a UNC crime forum on Monday night at the La Joya Complex, St Joseph, she said, "We can't just blame the young men or young women out there with the guns. I think it is something we need to look further into.

"Where are they getting the money for those guns? Or who is arming them? Who is giving them these guns? I think that is a very important point.

"Where are the guns coming from? They are not coming from the sky. They are coming through ports, whether the legal ports or the not-legal ports."

She said Trinidad and Tobago has an issue of very porous borders, an issue her government had tried to curb under former minister of national security Gary Griffith.

One proposal, she related, had been for the protective services to be deployed at fishing ports.

Another past proposal had been for Trinidad and Tobago to be encircled with a maritime wall.

"But also to go into the mangroves with interceptors, not big boats and ships, but hovercraft."

She endorsed an earlier call by political scientist Dr Indira Rampersad for a state of emergency (SoE).

Persad-Bissessar said, "I want to categorically agree with you, to state that what is needed now, amongst all the other suggestions, is a state of emergency in TT."

She said everything else had been tried.

She recalled her government being criticised for bringing a state of emergency after a spate of 11 murders in one weekend.

"What do we do? You have all the laws on the books, you have all the schools, you have all the social grants, the Ministry of Social Development...You had all these others things we are speaking about –and you know what made the difference? The state of emergency we instituted then!”

While getting some criticism for the SoE, she said, crime had then fallen, proving it had worked.

"So I ask you to consider that as we go forward for these crime talks, and we’ll have further discussions on it. It is definitely something that is needed at this time."

Persad-Bissessar later publicly acknowledged the presence of retired police superintendent Johnny Abraham – who had just made a contribution in the open-mic session. She proposed he should be included as a panellist at the next instalment in this series of UNC crime consultations.

Rampersad, in her contribution, said everyone in Trinidad and Tobago was living in fear of violent crime, being afraid even to go to the beach.

"You are living in fear. It is just abject fear."

She shared her own experience of trying to prepare academic work at night in St Augustine but being interrupted by gunshots.

"The political will is just not there to deal with this crime problem."

Rampersad too wondered where all the guns were coming from that were being used by criminals.

She cryptically ventured that in Trinidad and Tobago there were "sharks and barracudas, herrings and small fry." Rampersad said the drug trade involved big money and young men get involved to try to earn easy money.

"I think we need a state of emergency every day now," she said. "Every time I hear those guns ringing out."

Rampersad lamented the Generation Z (Gen Z) mindsets of today's 12-27 age group.

"I can tell you that the students of today are not the students of yesterday."

She did not know where Gen Z culture was coming from.

"It is perpetuating entitlement, uncaring, selfish, quick money. Some are very privileged. They are spoilt and they are lazy.

"That is because the generation before them worked very, very hard, to give them everything they want...not a good idea."

She said Gen Z youngsters had no interest in current affairs, such as watching the news, but were always on their phones.

Rampersad urged the nation's parents, "Pay attention to what your children are doing and take control!"