Trinidad and Tobago could be like Haiti in 10 years

THE EDITOR: Commenting on the murders of three Petit Valley family members (father, wife and son) in their house on Monday night, a neighbour stated to the press: “You mean to tell me that just like that a family gone. Wiped off the face of the earth…This country is just madness. Because even if you come to kill one, why would you kill everyone who was there…why turn the whole place into a slaughter house?”

It was reported that the killer wanted information on the whereabouts of one of the adult sons from the father and when he refused to give the information he, his wife and another adult son were shot to death.

Every adult person in this country knows why the killers will savagely murder everyone in that house; why they turned the whole place into a slaughter house. The neighbour was sounding off a rhetorical question.

The killers murdered everyone in that house in order to send a clear message to the people of this country – that if citizens refuse to co-operate and give information to the gangsters they will be killed, and most of all the killers know that it is more likely than not they would not be caught/arrested and/or prosecuted for their vicious crimes.

And this brings us to the vexed question: Who is ultimately accountable for the arrest and prosecution of such killers?

I openly state what all responsible, decent and law-abiding citizens wish to say but all are not speaking out: “It is the responsibility of the elected government of the day, mainly and particularly Prime Minister Rowley, who is the chairman of the National Security Council, Ministers Fitzgerald Hinds and Keith Scotland of the Ministry of National Security.”

Dr Rowley openly told the country that he is not to be blamed for the crimes of murder in this country (and this is separate and apart from the issue of solving the murders when they occur). His National Security Ministers could, therefore, also say they too are not to be blamed.

Let us set aside for now the actual murders. The vexed question for the three gentlemen is: When such murders take place, who is/are to be ultimately blamed for the failure to bring the killers before the courts?

By absolving himself and his two security ministers of the blame for killers not being brought court to face justice, the Government, via the Prime Minister, has admitted he and his cabinet do not know how to arrest the unprecedented murder rate or the killers.

And if the government of the day cannot solve the unprecedented killings in our country, then it must be duly replaced by the electorate.

Our country is moving along on the same pathway that Haiti travelled. If the gangsters continue to kill with impunity, then in less than ten years from now TT will be under the complete control of the gangsters and they, like in Haiti, would decide which political leaders rule our country.

ISRAEL B RAJAH-KHAN, SC

president

Criminal Bar Association