UNC leader: Gun, drug traffickers running amok in Caroni

Two flood pumps on the Caroni River are being repeatedly damaged and destroyed by criminals who are trying to chase farmers in order to take their lands and protect their gangs.

Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar made this and several other alarming claims about the apparent surge of extortion and other violent crimes against farmers in El Socorro, Aranjuez, and other neighbouring communities.

“They are terrorising the farmers in that area because they want no one to see what’s going on,” she told St Joseph residents at the UNC’s cottage meeting on Monday.

“The criminals continue to destroy the flood pumps. Why? To wipe our farmers, to get them out of the farmlands.

“They then bring in their criminal friends to squat on these lands so they can protect each other while moving their drugs and illegal guns.”

The opposition leader said the problem exists on the banks spanning Caroni, San Juan and St Joseph rivers – transport routes which gangs use to “carry their illegal contraband into their stronghold communities.”

She said the two pumps at the Caroni River were repeatedly damaged “because they didn’t want the watchman to remain on site. They feared he would report their movements up and down the river.

“Many victims of crime in St Joseph do not make reports to the police,” she said.

“Some feel futility in lodging official statements, while others fear further criminal reprisals. Members of the TTPS must know what’s going on in St Joseph. How can they not know?

“The incidences of crime are, therefore, significantly worse than what is recorded by the police station (because) not everyone goes to report.”

On the topic of drugs, the Government should consider increasing the age of cannabis consumption to align with the development of the brain, Persad-Bissessar told her audience.

“I want to call on government to consider raising the (minimum age) to 25 for marijuana use and gambling.

“(The UNC) gave children laptops. This government legalised marijuana.”

The government has, in fact, decriminalised the personal use of cannabis, permitting adults 18 and over to have up to 30 grams and to grow a maximum of four plants at any one time.

“Therefore, we should raise the age from whatever it is now to 25, when (people are) more developed, their brains are functioning better. (They’re) chasing their brain with marijuana at such an early age.”

She said the government has failed to implement necessary controls after “legalising” the use of the plant.

“There are no legal dispensaries, no consistent monitoring of the quality or origin of the supply. This government created that problem.”

Additionally, she said, some people mix harder drugs with cannabis “to get the young people addicted.”

Instead of getting it at dispensaries, people are buying on street corners from drug pushers, she said.

“The marijuana, as we said, is laced with cocaine. There is no consistency in the THC (tetrahydrocannabinol, the active substance in cannabis) levels.

“That is what gangs are fighting for – control of these corners.”