By Raffique Shah
October 18, 2025

At first, I thought I had completed a full circle. You see, I was just about ten years old when I got a notion of what a full circle was: you just go around, and around. In my 80th year I am seeing a full circle with the “make-work programme” that had started out as the Prime Minister’s “special works” programme with much fanfare. I had learnt of it in the newspaper which my father bought ritually every Sunday morning.

I remember photos of Dr Eric Williams on the front page of the paper, visiting maybe Laventille or Belmont or St James, to meet with some burly men. I would later learn they were steelband and community leaders. To bring readers into the current story of that full circle, our news has been dominated by the sudden and seemingly punitive closure of the URP and CEPEP programmes.

I gathered that the new Prime Minister, Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar, through her mouthpieces, had not just closed these social programmes that hire roughly 40,000 persons, but she was explaining: if they are to be reintroduced, they must be in the new format that makes them appear somewhat productive. They also intended to change the hiring and firing processes—and although she did not say this, I felt certain she would insist on loyal party hacks filling all vacancies, giving the new circle a personalised touch.

Now, I have seen and heard these words come from the mouths of the PNM, the NAR and the UNC several times before. When they are in Opposition, they promise to bulldoze the beast that is the “special works programme”. It brings out the beast in human beings, however the parties in power at the time “clothe” it.

Badjohns of yesteryear don suits—and if necessary, choose fancy “rides”—but the bloodletting, the fight for control of turf, for control of millions of dollars in contrast, continues in any nasty way it could to survive and penetrate the corridors of power.

It could be that those in power in any particular time control the captains of violence. Whoever and whatever confusion they have at that or any other level, I have little or no interest in. What bothers me and my doctor—we believe that herein lies the real gang warfare. Not only here in Trinidad and Tobago, but the world over.

Wherever there is violence, look to the political entities that rule the area.

The biggest gangsters in any country or any organisation invariably are also deep into politicking and power grabbing. These people are ruthless. Imagine right before our eyes, they have almost wiped out Palestine.

They have levelled entire communities in Eastern Europe.

Sudan’s famine marches on as its own people fight for control of the armaments and whatever little the country can offer.

And, now in the Caribbean Sea, we don’t even have to open the back door—we can just look through the window and see US President Donald Trump using US technology to wage war on pirogues ferrying Trump-called “drug traffickers”—most of whom live in abject poverty; clearly, the drug business “real” bad. It’s bad for your bank account and bad for your life. But, I digress.

To return to the scene of that circle of men and women, I must include both genders since KPB has validated female presence in the front ranks. I recall a micro-event that transpired 50 years ago when I was fighting for my life and that of my fellow mutineers.

I time-travel to the Saturday in March 1970 when the court which was chaired by Col Danjuma made our way down to Teteron barracks to visit the scene of the crime. After a couple hours on the ground, we were invited to the officers’ “mess” where we mixed freely with our judges.

Col Acheampong addressed me, “Lt Shah!”

I turned to him, “Yes, sir.”

“I heard you read a lot. Have you ever read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s First Circle? You should.”

The book, set in a Russian prison in the Stalin era, describes the machinations of senior Russian officers and politicians. They ran a KGB-controlled prison like a gang and the prisoners fought for dominance. Bloodletting was a way of life as the sweet nectar of raw power pulled men into that elite first circle.

Col Acheampong would go on to seize power in Ghana in a bloody coup after his return from Trinidad. A few years later, someone with a sense of dark humour sent me a photograph of Acheampong tied to a stake at the point of impact of a bullet to the head as he was executed for his crimes.

And, now I think of that first circle and wonder where on that circle have we found ourselves.