Category Archives: Crime in T&T

corruption, Court, Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics, UNC

Alleged corruption hurts UNC again

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…ex MP Collin Partap slams party

By Gail Alexander
May 06, 2019 – guardian.co.tt

Gerald Ramdeen, Anand RamloganCorruption allegations put the People’s Partnership (PP)/United National Congress (UNC) administration out of office in the 2010 general polls and more allegations or corruption-related charges against UNC members could well keep the UNC out of government in the 2020 general election.

It’s not a PNMite saying that. It’s former UNC Cumuto/Manzanilla MP and minister of state, Collin Partap doing so.
Continue reading Alleged corruption hurts UNC again →

Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Police

Wage war against criminals, not the media

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By Raffique Shah
April 30, 2019

Raffique ShahGary Griffith’s unilateral declaration of a “cold war” on the conventional media in general, and the CCN Group in particular, was as predictable as it was inevitable. As a garrulous ex-military officer whose larger-than-life public image was literally forged by and in the mass media, he failed to understand that unlike publicists who are paid to promote a product or personality, successful media houses thrive on their fierce independence in disseminating news and views.
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Crime in T&T, International, USA, Venezuela

At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war

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‘The mask of the US is off’: At UN, Anya Parampil speaks on Venezuela regime change war
By The Grayzone – YouTube – March 19, 2019

The Grayzone’s Anya Parampil spoke about the US-led regime change war on Venezuela and the right-wing opposition’s use of violence, at a UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva on March 19, on a panel titled “Humanitarian crisis in Venezuela: Propaganda vs. reality.”
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corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T

Do not politicise war against crime

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By Raffique Shah
February 20, 2019

Raffique ShahBuried in the last paragraph of a document titled “Interim Gang Report 2018”, which was compiled by the Organised Crime and Intelligence Unit of the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service and featured prominently in the last Sunday Express, was one of the main reasons why criminal gangs conduct their savagery with impunity, making a mockery of all attempts by new Commissioner of Police Gary Griffith to rein in their murderous rampage.

Said paragraph concludes: “…Extensive co-ordination between the TTPS and the T&T Prisons Service is crucial to expand investigations and gather intelligence to address the growing threat gangs pose to T&T.”
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics

The Door of Tomorrow

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 12, 2019

“The civilization of the fathers was hinged on the preservation of that which already existed, not on the discovery of new things.”

—Chigozie Obioma, An Orchestra of Minorities

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeBrian Harry is a Trini who was educated at Queen’s Royal College. He has lost several friends because of his outspokenness. Some years ago he told me that a major difference between a developed and a developing society is one of attitude. Citizens of a developed society think of what they can do; citizens of developing societies always think about what they can’t do.

This distinction came to mind on January 29 as I read the Trinidad Express and the New York Times articles of how two jurists approached matters of public policy. The cases involved the use of marijuana and each jurist’s response to it. I appreciate that we are talking about two different systems of jurisprudence, but their responses to a similar problem was interesting.
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Elections, European Union, General T&T, International, USA, Venezuela, Violence

The US Strategy for Regime Change in Venezuela

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The CEPR’s Alex Main and TRNN’s Greg Wilpert discuss the trajectory of US regime change policy in Venezuela through to the present coup in progress backed by the Trump administration.

By Alex Main & Greg Wilpert – The Real News
Jan 25th 2019 at 4.07pm

From economic sanctions to international pressure, how has the US strategy for regime change in Venezuela worked until now? An analysis with CEPR’s Alex Main and TRNN’s Greg Wilpert.
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Crime in T&T, PNM, UNC

Media trapped by trivia

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By Raffique Shah
December 19, 2018

Raffique ShahFor a country that is beset by myriad fundamental problems—real, imagined or contrived—it is amazing how easily the entire nation can be distracted by trivia.

Almost as side issues in the media, two senior politicians square off over what percentage of employed persons earn less than $6,000 per month, the benchmark for bare survival; hardly mentioned are the 10,000 or so workers who have been thrown on the breadline for the year. The national debt rises higher than Mt Cerro del Aripo; the murder toll crosses 500; and potholes on our roads exceed properly-paved driving surfaces, are all relegated to lower-ranked media attention.
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Crime in T&T, Germany, International, USA

Remembering the savagery of war

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By Raffique Shah
November 14, 2018

Raffique ShahI awoke last Sunday morning to see and hear French President Emmanuel Macron deliver an address before scores of world leaders gathered in Paris to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War. His was a good speech, an appeal for the world to not just to pay homage to the eight million-plus servicemen and women who lost their lives in the mistaken belief that they were fighting “the war to end all wars”, but also to note that if we did not learn from history, we were doomed to repeat the mistakes our forebears made.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Flushing the prisons’ excrement

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By Raffique Shah
October 24, 2018

Raffique ShahOne newspaper report put the tally of prisons officers murdered in the past 25 years at 22. Another stated that 16 were killed in 15 years. However we look at it, one can understand the outrage of those who chose to be at the vortex of the crime whirlwind that wreaks destruction across this country at being targeted by criminals, marked for death in a manner of speaking.

Make no mistake about it: it takes a measure of courage, one might even say madness or desperation, for a young man (or woman) to voluntarily offer to serve as a custodian in what are deemed prisons in Trinidad and Tobago. While, broadly speaking, jail is jail anywhere in the world, the stench that hits you when you enter the mostly stone-age structures that pass for prisons could churn the strongest stomachs.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics, Racism Watch

“The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.”

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By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
October 15, 2018

“Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold? No, gods, I am no idle votarist!…Thus much of this will make black white, foul fair, wrong right, base noble, old young, coward valiant.”

—William Shakespeare,”Timon of Athens”

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeTwo weeks ago, I made a case for “reparative justice.” Drawing on “Slavery, Abolition and the University of Glasgow,” a report that was coauthored by Dr. Stephen Mullen, a well-respected scholar, I challenged the national community to think about this concept. I did not chastise anyone. I simply stated facts as I saw them.

Mullen’s report was important because it drew on my work, The Slave Master of Trinidad, to demonstrate how Burnley’s profits and the capital he bequeathed to his son, William Frederick, subsidized the development of the University of Glasgow (UG). UG launched a program for reparative justice because of Mullen’s report. (See “Glasgow University to make amends over slavery profits,” London Guardian, September 11, 2018).
Continue reading “The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.” →