LINUS F DIDIER
I HAVE SAT on this letter for months, waiting for a sign and praying that I would not have to send it. Unfortunately, I was given the sign with the mass murder of four people in Trinidad and the malicious wounding of seven people in Tobago.
The Government has lost control of the country where crime is concerned.
One of the five levels of Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, from a biological perspective, is that of safety and security. This means freedom from harm, fear or threat. In Trinidad and Tobago we currently do not have that freedom.
Let me tell Tobago something. If you do not get your act together and bring that current crime spree under control, you will quickly become a lost paradise. You are on that road right now. Take action to change your direction.
Even if the central government does not care, your destiny is in your hands.
Tobago is too small to have seven people injured in a drive-by shooting in Speyside and no one knows a thing. That is absolute madness.
In 2023, according to police service statistics, there were 14 murders in Tobago. In 2024, in less than five months, there were seven murders, including the body of a woman found over a precipice at Mount St George on Friday.
It hurts me to see Tobago in this condition because I clearly remember a time when one murder a year was cause for concern.
The current imbroglio between the Tobago House of Assembly (THA) and the Environmental Management Authority (EMA), over the destruction of leatherback turtle eggs on Turtle Beach, speaks to governance that has lost its way.
Turtle Beach is a world renowned turtle nesting site. Both the EMA and the THA know who destroyed the beach and the turtle eggs. It is not a secret. But we have political posturing about the EMA hunting the people who destroyed the eggs. Save it. Build your case and prosecute.
Let us look at Trinidad. Where do we start?
Four people were murdered and eight injured in a Powder Magazine, Cocorite attack. It is not the first time. In March, five people were murdered and three injured in a brazen daylight shooting at Harpe Place.
I saw a video of an armed robbery in a grocery in California in central where two little girls were victims.
When a father cannot take his two little daughters into a neighbourhood grocery without having to confront bandits with guns, the Government has lost control of the country.
Students of the Malick Secondary School had an altercation in which one of them called a relative for back-up. This resulted in gunmen, armed with high-powered rifles, showing up at the school.
It is extremely distressing to see so many small business people being murdered or their businesses being bombed or attacked, because they refuse to pay extortion taxes to bandits. There has been a significant rise in this type of crime.
What have we come to when anywhere you go you have to be on continuous alert?
Dr Rowley took umbrage at the Opposition's continuous reporting of "crime, crime, crime, crime." When you live in a bubble for the
