Daly Bread: Practiced detachment from the killings

Last week’s column was forced to return to what I assert is the government’s unwillingness to take any responsibility for the prevailing rampant killings, particularly for the easy passage of guns and drugs into our island for well over a decade.

If not government agencies, who else is expected to take responsibility and accountability for porous borders and lax inspection of cargo at the legal ports? The record of both major political parties when in government, in respect of these critical aspects of national security, is dismal.

If we have an assault weapon gun culture, which the Prime Minister lamented, who paid for the weapons and who let them in here? Who profits most?

Alas, last Sunday at the same time of publication of my column, which was critical of the government constantly blaming everyone and everything but itself—frequently in arrogant tones—the front page of the Trinidad Express newspaper informed us of the multiple murders at Harpe Place, East Port of Spain.

Not surprisingly, there followed volleys of blame and offensive tones from the government directed towards us, the citizens, together with repetitions of meaningless promises to deal with gun violence in the country.

In a comment from Minister of National Security Fitzgerald Hinds, which I would describe as jeering, he inquired whether residents would “go back to business as usual” and not give information to the police about gangs in their neighbourhood.

That is, in reality, an invitation to get executed—just like the female who suffered that fate within hours of making a report to a police station and those state witnesses who do not make it to the trial of those against whom it is intended that they testify.

“Jeering” may be a kind word. An editorial in the Newsday, on Tuesday last, described that utterance of Hinds as excoriating.

The editorial was entitled Chaotic Conversations and was commenting on the respective statements of the Prime Minister and Hinds on their Facebook pages, in the immediate aftermath of the mass murder at Harpe Place.

That editorial stated, among other things that: “he (Hinds) expressed deep condolences to those affected—but in the same breath excoriated residents for purportedly not being sincere in fighting gangs.

“As some desperately erected street barriers to try to keep strangers out, he asked whether residents would go back to business as normal.”

I adopt these words in order to underline the detachment that the government uncaringly practices from its duty to provide and maintain public safety. These words also underline the extent of the government’s loss of control of areas of our country.

Such loss of control is—as I have so often explained by reference to the writings of Professor HLA Hart—a form of coup d’état.

I saw it and predicted its effect more than a decade ago. Some are now waking up and calling for accountability when who not dead, badly wounded a long time ago.

What I want to add today is an inquiry whether the government will now carefully and sincerely examine the relationship of partisan politics and lax governance to gang violence and the financiers of it.

Stop stressing about the perceived relationship between residents and gangs, which is no more than a silent co-existence on the part of traumatised citizens that survival demands of them.

Perhaps the government will start the required introspection with an assessment of whether the Brian Manning-led government’s bonding, with so-called community leaders, is relevant to our current sorry state.

The government also needs carefully and sincerely to examine the relationship between its Ministry of Education and the thousands of youngsters the Ministry causes to be sidelined annually.

It is best expressed in these questions: What will be the outcome for those who faced the Secondary Entrance Assessment exam on Thursday last but who do not pass for a good school or who do not have the aptitude for a colonial-type grammar school education?

Will we permit gangs to continue to feed on their disinterest and frustration?

Reggie Dumas and I routinely and warmly addressed each other as “Comrade”. He will rest well, but he would do so even better if we were to re-engineer the education system.

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Martin Daly

Martin G Daly SC is a prominent attorney-at-law. He is a former Independent Senator and past president of the Law Association of Trinidad and Tobago.
He is chairman of the Pat Bishop Foundation and a steelpan music enthusiast.