Category Archives: Crime in T&T

Crime in T&T, General T&T, USA, Venezuela

Sleeping with the enemy

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By Raffique Shah
August 30, 2025

Raffique ShahPrime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar can never be as uninformed as she portrays herself to be in matters of foreign affairs, to wit: regional and hemispheric alliances. It took previous governments, starting with the PNM in the 1960s, to cultivate good relations with our Spanish-speaking neighbours in Venezuela.

We often forgot then, as many states now learn, that there is the vast expanse of Portuguese-speaking Brazil a step away from Venezuela.
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Crime in T&T, Finance

Beware of greed

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By Raffique Shah
July 26, 2025

Raffique ShahI find it inexcusable that adult Trinidadians and Tobagonians who have benefited from the education and training that this country has offered easily fall victim to modern-day Trinidad “smart-men”.

CCN journalist Mark Bassant has focused on an “investment” that has relieved a significant number of our citizens who, in a couple of years, lost millions of dollars, in some cases, to a bunch of fellas who looked like they never even graduated pre-school. What is even more disturbing is among the people who invested are lawyers and doctors, professionals who are supposed to be “bright”.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Of crime and cowards

By Raffique Shah
February 22, 2025

Raffique ShahNow more than ever, I am convinced that this society is so steeped in corrupt practices that no one can claim to not know what has been happening for 50-60, whatever, years. So confident am I in laying this charge of universal theft, banditry, if my editors will only agree, I shall pronounce that in this jurisdiction, everyone is presumed guilty unless or until he can prove innocence.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

We created the monster

By Raffique Shah
February 01, 2025

Raffique ShahWhen the moral fabric of a society runs into decay before it could bloom, we know we are in deep trouble.

When children have no idea of the values that were applied by our forebears to guide us so that we can distinguish right from wrong, that we can act in good faith to build a country that booms and blooms, that makes living here a pleasant experience, we have reached the point of no return. The young—and here I mean under ten—can only envision a hell such as Dante’s Inferno: they enter puberty and they abandon hope.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, PNM, Politics

Vote out the PNM

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
December 28, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeThree recent events cemented in my mind that the poor and the not-so-poor will suffer much more over the next five years than they do today if the present Government is not changed.

The PNM must move aside to allow us to inhale a new breath of freedom, experience greater competence in running the country’s affairs, and to assure us that we can expect a more normal life in the future.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

Put books in prisons

By Raffique Shah
December 28, 2024

Raffique ShahThe world is what it is.

Having stolen one of Vidia Naipaul’s more thought-provoking opening phrases, frankly I don’t feel guilty. I do not believe I stole anything from VS. I’m sure he has quoted or fallen back on many a Trinidadian writer for original material to start his considerable portfolio of novels that made him famous. “The world is what it is” is as powerful a line as Dante Alighieri’s “Abandon all Hope, ye who enter here” in his 14th-century narrative poem, “The Divine Comedy”.
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Crime in T&T, PNM, Politics

Hubris goes before the fall

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
November 12, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was November 2016; the PNM had just won an election, and it was riding high. At a conference hosted by the Government and the International Monetary Fund, Finance Minister Colm Imbert explained why he had raised the price of fuel. He boasted: “I increased the price of fuel by 15% and then realised that was not enough. I came back again in April and raised it by another 15% and I came back again just a few weeks ago and raised it by another 15%. They haven’t rioted yet.” (Loop News, November 9, 2016.)
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Crime in T&T, General T&T, Politics

Wayy Sah! Ah want dat

By Raffique Shah
September 11, 2024

Raffique ShahOn the unusual occasion that I venture out of the sanctuary that is my humble home, I would invariably encounter people who ask about my health, a formality they usually dispense with before I can answer them. Two out of three of them would hurriedly shift focus to the subject they likely want to talk about, or likelier give me their opinion: crime.

We all know that crime as an issue did not start yesterday. Sure, it reached crisis proportions a few years ago in this country. But it was always an issue that politicians and citizens who form the electorate can vent their spleen on, and many times cast their votes on.
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Crime in T&T, General T&T

A time to kill

By Raffique Shah
August 17, 2024

Raffique ShahIt was the Freeport address that piqued my interest. Six bandits (the police did not use “alleged”) shot dead in Freeport. Normally I would pay passing attention to such reports since the killing fields of criminals operating in this country can be anywhere, given our small size.

I paid closer attention now as I sat talking with my brother, Feroze, trying to figure out if we knew any of those who were killed by the police earlier that day, as we’d spent most of our lives in what I call “Greater” Freeport. As the television presenter continued with what was little more than a routine story, I realised the culprits did not belong to Freeport. They had, in fact, rented the house in a district that had expanded way beyond what I knew it to be. For all we know, one could be from Cedros and another, Toco.
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Crime in T&T, Education, General T&T

Discoursing about crime and education

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
July 17, 2024

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeJust think of the contradictions. One opens the Express of Tuesday, July 9, and is greeted with the blood-splattered headline “Bloody Monday”. Then comes the sub-headline: “Triple murder rocks Tobago” and “Carlsen Field home invasion: son killed, father critical”.

One then ventures to page three and the horror of the crimes: “Hangings must resume in this country. So said a relative of Anslem Douglas, one of the three murder victims shot multiple times on Sunday night. The triple murder, the first of its kind to rock the island, took Tobago’s 2024 murder toll to 15, one more than the whole of 2023.”
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