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A snake in the grass
Posted: Saturday, March 9, 2002
by Donna Yawching
Apart from that time when I inadvertently ignored a no-right-turn sign, I am not a lawbreaker. I don’t smoke cigarettes, far less crack cocaine; I prefer Coke to rum, and sharp words to sharp knives. I don’t even like the sight of guns. Which is one reason why Operation Anaconda has me so uneasy. I don’t like it at all.
Yes, I know lots of people are “oohing” and “aahing” at the sight of all these big macho soldiers in combat fatigues, toting their military hardware with steely-eyed determination. From a distance, it looks like an American movie. It’s a sign that the government is doing something to curb the crime scene, after years of doing nothing. This, at least, is what we tell ourselves.
I blame Basdeo Panday for our naiveté in this regard. After a year of having essentially no National Security Minister on duty (or at any rate, one whose chief characteristic was personal paranoia, rather than concern for the nation), the electorate is now bowled over by suddenly having a Minister who is not only visible, but visibly active. Few people are bothering to question the wisdom, or the effectiveness, of all this activity. Even fewer are making any mention of civil or human rights: the days are long gone when Ramesh made that his legal “beat”, and no-one else appears to have taken up the torch.
I, personally, am deeply concerned. Yes, I worry about crime; and yes, I think the government needs to be proactive in fighting it. But frankly, I do not feel at all safe walking down a street that is infested by men with machine guns—and a barely-restrained eagerness to use them. If anything, I feel far more apprehensive than when they’re not there. It’s just too easy to get caught in crossfire.
A man walks with a gun for one reason only: to shoot someone, if the (perceived) need arises. A soldier is trained to do one thing mainly: to kill people, if the (perceived) need arises. The convergence of these two realities on the streets of my city fills me with uneasiness. I’d much rather take my chances with a pickpocket, or chain-grabber. The Anaconda patrols have already shot two dogs who could not have been accused of committing a crime; one wonders what their reaction would be to a street-spitter, or a wall-pee-er. Keep those wienies hidden, fellas!
I recently ran into a roadblock—in the western peninsula, to prove to the Beetham masses that the middle-class folks are not exempt. (Mind you, all the Audis and Civics passed without hindrance; the maxis and taxis were pulled over as a matter of course.) I looked at the scene and thought: “This isn’t Trinidad; it’s Nigeria, or Sierra Leone. Surely we have not yet reached the stage where we need to be intimidated by our own authorities.”
Because, innocent though I was of any wrong-doing, intimidated was what I felt. I knew that these men with guns had the power to hold me up for hours if they so chose; to arrest me for no particular reason if they saw fit; to shoot me if they decided that I was not cooperating. I didn’t like the feeling at all.
And I wondered: if middle-class, educated, articulate me could feel that way, what must be the sense of utter powerlessness felt by those in Laventille and Morvant, the Beetham and Marabella; all those non-criminal people who have the misfortune to live in those areas simply because they are poor, and who must simply have cringed in fear? In Westmoorings, the patrols are probably (for the most part) courteous and non-invasive; in Marabella, they burst into your yard and shoot your dogs. In Laventille, they probably forget the word “please”.
I worry about the constitutionality of all this activity. At Minister Chin Lee’s big media launch at the Hilton—the one where he arrived, like the Queen, to the sound of fanfares and drumrolls, which immediately predisposed me against him—I heard American criminologist Dr Robin Engel talk about the success of “aggressive” patrolling of “hotspots” in New York City. I would be surprised, however, if they ever called out the army to do these patrols. I suspect Dr Engel would not recognise, in the Trinidad visuals, the same activity that occurred in New York.
In New York, you see, the authorities still have to worry about civil rights; the populace insists upon it. Not here, though: mention of such minor details would brand you as namby-pamby, if not overtly on the side of the criminals. Still, civil rights are the very basis of democracy; and I would very much like to know more about the “warrants” which our anacondas are using on their squeeze missions.
As I understand it, a search warrant is a very specific thing, applied for and granted—individually—by a magistrate, on the basis of credible evidence regarding the particular place to be searched. Is this procedure currently being followed? Are magistrates being legally convinced of the need for each warrant, or are they just handing them out wholesale, under ministerial command? And if the latter, is this legal, or constitutional? Have the owners of any of the ransacked premises ever asked for and examined a warrant, or checked its validity? Or have they been too afraid of being shot?
In western mythology, “snake” is not a favourable concept: it conveys something that cannot be trusted, a snake in the grass, a serpent in Eden. Like everyone else in this country, I would like crime to diminish; I would like to see evil-doers in prison, and our streets once more safe to walk. I would like to see our young people gainfully employed. I think all this can be achieved, over time, through some of Chin Lee’s other tactics; but not through the theatrical, or abusive, use of “anacondas”. We in Trinidad should not lose sight of the fact that people who play with snakes are liable to get bitten. Sometimes fatally.
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