Newsday Editorial
May 1 2011 – newsday.co.tt
The recent kidnapping for ransom of a citizen of China who owned and operated a restaurant at St Helena has brought to the fore, once again, the question of illegal immigrants living and working in Trinidad and Tobago.
Speaking in Senate recently, Independent Senator Rolph Balgobin raised this issue.
And his concerns are, in our opinion, relevant and need to be examined. We need to know, as a matter of some importance, how many non-citizens of Trinidad and Tobago currently own and operate businesses in our country.
And this information should be amplified to let us know what are the businesses these illegal immigrants are operating, and how they were granted licences (where licences are required) to operate these businesses. We need to know how many persons are employed in these foreign-owned establishments, and what are the nationalities of these employees?
If these employees are all foreigners, we need to know if they have Work Permits to be employed here. And if, for instance, they are foreigners employed in say, restaurants in Trinidad and Tobago, how were they granted the work permits they may be holding.
Balgobin has suggested that many new businesses, particularly restaurants, have opened in recent years, and appear to be owned and operated by persons who appear to be immigrants. He has suggested that many of these businesses do not appear to be viable, with very limited customer bases. The suggestion is that many may be fronts for money laundering and other illegal activities.
Of course, the recent and still unsolved kidnapping of Ms Shan, and the murder in Ellerslie Plaza of restaurant owner Anthony Chen, have fuelled rumours of connections between these two incidents, and talk of a “Chinese mafia” involved in crime in Trinidad and Tobago. In the absence of evidence to support these theories, we ask our readers to only accept what is actually known, and not to speculate on the rumours.
However, the incidents, whether related or not, when taken with Balgobin’s concerns, need to be investigated beyond the actual crimes known so far. The Ministry of National Security, responsible for the investigations into kidnappings and murders, as well as immigration and citizenship issues, needs to explain to the country just which immigrants can arrive in TT and set up businesses here. And what types of business they may establish.
About a year ago we heard of a case where a foreigner, resident in Maraval, had applied to the police for a permit to own and use a firearm. The person was the operator, if not owner, of a licenced business here in our country, but could not speak English.
How can an illegal immigrant, who does not speak our language, come into our country and operate a business? Was this person actually granted a firearm users’ licence? How many of the several businesses — euphemistically called “private members’ clubs” – are foreign owned and operated? And who granted these licences, and under what conditions?
We recall that former Prime Minister Patrick Manning had, in a sudden and obviously passing fit of morality, announced he was going to close down certain types of clubs, and even end the State owned Lotto. But nothing came of that announcement.
However, we totally support Balgobin’s call for some light to be shed on the issue of foreign-owned and managed businesses being operated in our country. We call on him to put this issue, and its related financial implications, to the Minister of National Security for answer in the Senate.
http://www.newsday.co.tt/editorial/0,139820.html
Senators hit money-laundering
THE Senate on Tuesday, following the Lower House earlier this month, passed a Bill to tie up loose ends in the law against money-laundering and terrorist- financing.
Calder Hart ran the country during the Manning years. Chinese businesses were sneaked in through the back door, suddenly Chinese restaurants were opening up all over the place. Why wasn’t Indian restaurants allowed to be opened up the same why?
It is time the red dragon be sent packing.
this is absolutely true.the money is then taken out of the country which in turn drains the economy. next the disgusting reputation of a crime ridden country which is known around the world.
I have said before, that every time I come to TnT, I see things happening at the airport that do not bear close scrutiny. Seven people come off a flight froom the USA. They do not have entry papers. Suddenly a squat little Indian guy runs up holding a sheaf of pale green legal length govern ment papers, and the men who were told to stand aside, are all let in, one by one. I could document this on my digital camers, if I thought I could get out of the airport alive.
Two women in First Class, one Indian one white, andr bringing in a young Indian woman. Shhe is sitting next to nme near the bulkhead. She wraps her head in her scaf and sleeps through the trip. When Its time to fill in the landing forms, she gets up as I wake her nd give her her form, and passes it to the two women in first class. Obviously this girl is illiterate in English, but she gets in to TnT because her sponsors who are flying first class, know the ropes, and who to talk to.
Sometimes, I think my country’s situation is hopeless. If the Minister of National Security was serious, he would install cameras at the airport and keep the immigration lines, passengers and staff, under constant surveillance.But, what if he is serious, and the people HE reports to are a bunch of careless jokers, full of hot air?
The fact that illegals can use our ports as places from which to attemmpt to get to the USA(like the three stowaways from the DR some time back) could cause us, and our trade with the US to be considered an unnecesary security risk. We have to get serious.
It is good to know some Indians are coming to T&T. All I have been seeing is Chinese, Cuban doctors, Nigerian doctors, Filipino nurses, Bajans, Vincees, and some Guyanese amongst others. Thanks Linda for your observation. Now how do we bring some more of these people in T&T? I await your kind suggestions.
Contact your crooked offiials at the ports, who look like you, Mamoo. Last time I travelled, only ONE immigration official was not an Indian, she was a slender dark skinned woman. Maybe by now, she gone too. Look at “shipwrecks” from Guyana landing on our south beaches. Watch the port of Pt. Lisas, which is supposed to be only for Cargo, but people come off and do not return to ship. Watch the “fishing baots” in the gulf with no lights at night, when it is an international maritime rule that every boat has a riding light. And finally, Mamoo, ask the Indian woman who killed the policeman on duty on the Southeren Highway with her Lexus, and who faked her being a”student at UWI”. Who brought her in, and while you are at it, go back to the ppaers a few days back, and check on the “Indian businessman in Tunapuna” working in marble slab sales, who brough in two slaves. Find out who he bribed, and see if you could follow suit.(I know you were trying to be sarcastic,) but follow too the outbreaks of dengue fever in pockets of the south. That is where the illegal Indians are hding. Dengue and typhoid are endemic to India, Burma and Nepal. The Nepalese UN Peacekeepers in HAiti defecated in the bushes as they are wont to and caused a cholera outbreak that killed thousands, because, like good Easterners, after defecating, they washed their butts in the nearby river.
A plague upon you, and all like you who think this is funny. Deadly fun is not fun to those who die.Our country is drowning in illegals from all the places you named, but most of them are Indians.”Dem easy to hide, Beytie, dem easy to hide”.
Thanks for the lecture in hatred. It is amazing the amount of hate that could exist in woman’s human heart. Linda wrote “A plague upon you, and all like you who think this is funny. Deadly fun is not fun to those who die.”
Somehow I am responsible for the death of people? Please explain yourself Linda are you planning to send plagues across the world to kill people you don’t like??? I think you are becoming delusional, please stay away from the valium.
Linda wrote “The Nepalese UN Peacekeepers in HAiti defecated in the bushes as they are wont to and caused a cholera outbreak that killed thousands, because, like good Easterners, after defecating, they washed their butts in the nearby river..” Now where were the Haitian defecating and cleaning themselves Linda? And why would Nepal even send peace keepers in Haiti seeing that they have their own problems to deal with namely the “maoist”. But you are allowed to make such spurrious and hateful claims because that is who you are…
Linda wrote “Find out who he bribed, and see if you could follow suit.(I know you were trying to be sarcastic,) but follow too the outbreaks of dengue fever in pockets of the south. That is where the illegal Indians are hding. Dengue and typhoid are endemic to India, Burma and Nepal.”
Linda are you saying the oubreaks of dengue was caused by illegal Indians in sweet T&T? Now I think you have completely lost it. Where does it end with your lies and propaganda?
Please Linda learn to speak and write the truth. Remember the devil is the father of lies…..
Mamoo, check the UN reports on the outbreak in Haiti please.I deal in the facts, as I pride myself on being widely read.
CHOLERA, which had previously been eradicated in the Caribbean, was brought there by the Nepalese peacekeepers. Whether you like it or not, this is a fact. Dengue is a plague in India, all those going to the Commonwealth Games were afraid of it. Have you ever wondered why the outbreaks in TnT are usually in “Indian ” areas? When I kick butt with facts I am always called a hater. I am so named by whites, Africans, Indians and now, perhaps by Chinese. Facts are facts.The government should stage raids on all the homes of the wealthy to look for slaves brought in under cover of darkness and kept in servitude behind high walls. Where were you when I cndemned the Nigerian High Commissioner of a few years back, for having an unpaid and unrelated to her, child,(aged 14) working in her house? The child ran away and was given assylum by the TnT government, just as those two Indian slaves from the Tunapuna businessman sought help from others. Only if you were born yesterday, or you only read things pertaining to your own group would you not know of this.
I was not born yesterday.
Linda wrote “I was not born yesterday” You sure do sound like someone born yesterday. Today’s generation do not hold on to the stereotype that you hold on to. It is ignorant, backward and does not have any place in today’s social construct. You extrapolation of ideas leaves much to be desired. While you claim Indians are coming here “en mass” something I have never seen or observed I wonder where you were when Islanders flooded the ports of Port of Spain not so long ago. According to official government record within a few years over 50,000 islanders were rushed in given ID cards and told to vote PNM. Where were you then?
In saying in Indian areas there are more dengue fever, I can say in African areas there are more AIDS would I be wrong in that assertion? I can also say in African areas there is a very high percentage of single mothers and absent fathers giving rise to gang activities. Would I be wrong? See I can go on but in blunt world of the “big mouths” the donkey that brays the most gets the attention. As former PM Eric said “let the donkey bray”. (lol).Keep on braying.
“In 2008 the breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows: one out of 18 men, one in 89 women, one in 11 African-Americans (9.2 percent), one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent), and one in 45 whites (2.2 percent). Crime rates have declined by about 25 percent from 1988-2008.[12] 70% of prisoners in the United States are non-whites.[13]”
“In the year 2006, of the entire total 1,266,264 legal immigrants to USA from all the countries, 58,072 were from India. Immigration from India is currently at its highest level in history. Between 2000 and 2006 421,006 Indian immigrants were admitted to the United States, up from 352,278 during the 1990–1999 period.[14] According to the US census, the overall growth rate for Indians from 1990 to 2000 was 105.87 percent. The average growth rate for the whole of USA was only 7.6 percent.”
Linda the figures speak for themselves. America has open it doors to Indians from India and shut it doors to the African/American dream by incacerating 1 in 11 of them. America welcomes Indians so why should be any different in Trinidad. Why are Chinese, Filipinos, Cuban doctors, Nigerians and small islanders welcome to sweet T&T and Indians are excluded?
Here is some other facts:”According to the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, there are close to 35,000 Indian American doctors.[19] According to the 2000 census, about 64% of Indian Americans have attained a Bachelor’s degree or more.[20] (compared to 28% nationally, and 44% average for all Asian American groups). Almost 40% of all Indians have a master’s, doctorate or other professional degree, which is five times the national average.[16] Among Indian Americans, 72.3% participate in the U.S. work force, of which 57.7% are employed in managerial and professional specialties.[21]
According to the 2000 U.S. Census, Indian American men had “the highest year-round, full-time median earnings ($51,094)”, while Indian American women had a median income of $35,173.[20]
Indian Americans own 50% of all economy lodges and 35% of all hotels in the United States, which have a combined market value of almost $40 billion.[22] In 2002, there were over 223,000 Asian Indian-owned firms in the U.S., employing more than 610,000 workers, and generating more than $88 billion in revenue.[23]
So stop trying to paint Indians as backward and uncivilized people by picking and choosing some silly examples. The facts Linda speaks for itself. Indians in T&T will be good for the economy… Please.
The Dengue proves that there are illegal Indians there. The AIDS may also be there, but that is world wide pandemic, not isolated to a part of the Indian subcontinent. Go to the CDC website of the USA and check on diseases, see what they say about Dengue. You have not addressed the issues that I raised, because you go for the “Islanders” gimmick.
I’m against anyone coming to my homeland illegally, whether from Guyana or Grenada, India or China. You avoided the UN report about cholera in Haiti to talk trash about the PNM. Mister, you sound seriously deranged, paranoic even.
If we are going to build one Trinidad and Tobago, people like you need your minds re-arrnged.
We have a problem. It needs solutions. You have NO ideas to offer, just trash talk about Islanders. Trinidad and Tobago are isands, not so?
Your language and tone suggests that you are another blogger, equally deranged, masquerading under a different name.
“Dengue originated in Africa and was spread worldwide with the slave trade. The most convincing explanation for the name dengue is that it is derived from the Swahili “Ka-Dinga pepo” that describes the disease as a sudden cramp like disease caused by an evil spirit.”
Saying that dengue came from illegal Indians is wrong,stupid and misguided. Dengue, like West Nile disease along with AIDS started in Africa. Dengue came to Trinidad via the slave trade. Dengue is not only in India but is also in many African nations, South America and nations along the tropics. The reason why we have more information about dengue in India is simply better monitoring and record keeping. Please Linda stop spreading all these lies and propaganda… Learn to speak the truth as hard as that may be…
There is no vaccine for dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease endemic to tropical regions across the world, including Asia and Africa.
Since January 1, nearly 46,600 confirmed or suspected cases have been detected in Latinamerica according to the latest reports from the Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO.
Those deaths include at least 14 in Peru’s north-eastern Amazon jungle region, eight in Colombia, five in Paraguay and four in Bolivia. Another twelve are been tested in Brazil for confirmation.
In 2010 the disease killed 1,187 people across Latin America, according to PAHO figures. Some 1.8 million cases were detected, the PAHO said.
“The Americas has seen a dengue epidemic over the past years, with an increase in certain countries,” said PAHO spokesman Daniel Epstein. In Venezuela, for example, 125,000 cases were reported in 2010, nearly twice the figure from the previous year.
According to your logic Linda maybe there is a lot of illegal Indians in Venezuela seeing that there are so many cases of dengue fever. These are just the facts but you racist Pan-African world view has made you into something worst than a mosquito bite.
“incidence of dengue increased 30 fold between 1960 and 2010. This increase is believed to be due to a combination of urbanization, population growth, increased international travel, and global warming. The geographical distribution is around the equator with 70% of the total 2.5 billion people living in endemic areas from Asia and the Pacific.” Wikipedia
These are the facts Mamoo, try educating yourself. The fact that so-called linguist derive Dengue from a Swahili word, means nothing as Swahili; a relatively new African language, is heavily influenced by the language of the Asiatic; and since the first recorded evidence of Dengue occured in China, it suggest that just like malaria and syphilis were brought to the African continent by Asian invaders so too was Dengue. The mosquito itself evolved on the American continent.
“The first record of a case of probable dengue fever is in a Chinese medical encyclopedia from the Jin Dynasty (265–420 AD) which referred to a “water poison” associated with flying insects. There have been descriptions of epidemics in the 17th century, but the most plausible early reports of dengue epidemics are from 1779 and 1780, when an epidemic swept Asia, Africa and North America. From that time until 1940, epidemics were infrequent.” Wikipedia
Mamoo you should read the other historical figures that show who struggled and opened the doors in the US for you and your Indian kin to be able to go to the schools and get those PHD. Check how many of them had PHDs prior to the civil rights struggles. Like a damn vulture who waits until the lion has left his kill to feed on the carcass, you are boasting about accomplishments black struggles and blood made possible. Man, you people have to be the most ungrateful and deceitful in this damn world.
The black struggle in the US has indeed been one for the history books. I think Gandhi provided the inspiration for it. So in some ways it was an Indo/Afro kind of unity against the oppressors. I am not against anyone but was just responding to racist Linda diatribe Keith. Don’t take in personally. I am not happy when 1 out of every 11 African American is in US jails. This is cycle that must be broken.
I must say I do have some understanding of this terrible cycle. I remember having contact with a number of young black girls, these girls I knew. As they grew many of them came from single parent homes. As one man said to me these girls do not stand a chance! I have to admit that I did not understand at the time what he was saying..until later. A few of them became prostitues, I remember seeing one of the girls waiting for a pickup one day and my heart broke she was just fourteen. The other one I saw late one night waiting for a pickup…. None of them got married but they all had beautiful babies in their teenage years. Even the ones who I thought would not go down that pathway did. Sadly. Maybe you were the child of single parent Keith, you appear to be angry all time…
“The black struggle in the US has indeed been one for the history books. I think Gandhi provided the inspiration for it.”
If Gandhi was gutted by the Zulus during their war against the British Colonials, we African-Caribbeans would not have to suffer such ignorance from India’s newly arrived, indentured lower caste. Have you never heard of Booker T. Washington? He died before Baap Gandhi ever heard of the term Civil Rights.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Booker_T._Washington
Don’t get it twisted, colonial Indian sycophants were quite happy to go along with racial discrimination even against their own darker skinned brethren, until the Mahatma encountered the savage Neandertal in Southern Africa. Just because MLK gave Gandhi credit for a ‘strategy’ Indians have been flaunting that revelation like a feather in their cap.
For those who get their information from sensational newspaper headlines and television’s talking heads; Martin Luther King, Jr. credited Gandhi for his ‘non-violent form of protest’ a strategy he adopted to campaign for African Civil Rights in the United States. The struggle for Civil Rights and its legion activists is a uniquely COntinental American institution.
In am so glad that both Kieth Williams and Karibqueen know what research is, and can get the facts. I have never wondered what ethnicity either of you are, just read your comments and say, yes, there are intelligent people working on this blog.
Now, when the Commonwealth GAmes were shaping up, there was the fear of Dengue, not in what Malawians can catch from Brits, or what Kenyans may give to Jamaicans, but the fear of Dengue in India, mosquitoes in the potholes surrounding the newsly constructed games village, and even mosquitoes in the rooms of the athletes. I listen to the BBC every day, and read papers from all over the English speaking world. There was no such fer when the Olympics was held in China or Australia. Thus my hypothesis that the pockets of dengue that break out in Indian areas of Trinidad, emanate from illegal Indians sneaking in, with the bacteria in their blood, and transmitting it to others nearby. One can be carrier and never get sick. Mamoo however, raised the possibility that Indo-trinis could have been bitten by Venezuelan mosquitoes, when they go there in their “fishing boats” for multifarious wrong purposes, either drug or human cargo smuggling.
“Mouth open, ‘tory jump out”.
There are no cautions about Dengue in Africa on the CDC website, at least there were not when I checked last year before going for a month to Malawi.They have malaria.
I did not want to take those malaria pills,I said, I never got Malaria in TnT;but a friend of mine, a chemist with a major drug company said “Take them, its a different strain there.” A west African man I know, said he takes them when he goes to his country, so, I hauled my tail to the clinic recommended for travellers, and paid $230.00US for thirty pills. Not only was I protecting myself, but also protecting my country of adoption from a deadly disease. Our illegal sneak-ins have no such concerns.
Educated, responsible people act a certain way. Veritas.
I knew you backward Mamoo, just did not know how dense. The African struggle in the US began long before Mahatma was a gleam in his father’s eyes. Ghandi did not inspire the Underground Railroad to get Africans out of slavery.
You are boasting about accomnplishments that you enjoy from the blood of Africans. You are talking about academic accomplishments when you cannot produce one thing, one invention, one gift to humanity given by Indian intellectualism. It is African intellectualism that allows you to drive a vehicle on the road without the chaos of unregulated traffic. Everytime a traffic light prevents a truck from crushing your gold fish attention span, it is the intellectualism of an African that made that possible. Every time you get a a wound and need a transfusionto save your life, it is African intellectualism that made that possible.
All the degrees in the world cannot make you smart or intelligent. One can train a jackass to do many things. But the learning and ability to think about things abstractly is a gift than no amount of cramming can give you. IN other words, your abject ignorance is manifested by the inability to think outside the odious prejudiced prism that comes from centuries of unculteration in caste, and who was born from which part of Gods’ body. That is why there is turmoil everywhere you arrive after Africans had been there for centuries. From Fiji to T&T you inject a culture of obnoxious racism with your arrival in our midst.
“All the degrees in the world cannot make you smart or intelligent. One can train a jackass to do many things. But the learning and ability to think about things abstractly is a gift than no amount of cramming can give you.”
It has been proven that people with degrees earn more than those who go about scratching themselves and waiting for welfare or government support. As one white American said to me “Americans don’t want to work they want to eat “cheetos” and say Obama will solve our problems”. It can be said in other nations where people are waiting for the government to build them a house and find them a job.
It is called the culture of dependency. True liberation can only come by education. As Eric said “the future of the nation is in the school bags”.
The drug addict peddling his stuff on the street my be thinking in the abstract. He may be looking for different ways to peddle his stuff but he is still a druggie who is waste to society. These are the abstract thinkers who surround you Keith, thinking of ways to take people money.