KI­TO JOHN­SON

Mun­chausen Syn­drome is de­fined as "a psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­or­der where­by those af­fect­ed feign or ex­ag­ger­ate in­jury or ill­ness in or­der to get sym­pa­thy from oth­ers". It was named af­ter Baron von Mun­chausen, an 18th cen­tu­ry Ger­man mil­i­tary of­fi­cer who was known for fab­ri­cat­ing or great­ly em­bell­ish­ing sto­ries, in or­der to be seen in a more favourable light by his friends and fam­i­ly. What is im­por­tant to the Mun­chausen suf­fer­er, is that they be­come the cen­tre of at­ten­tion and are able to ma­nip­u­late the feel­ings of those around them. Most politi­cians suf­fer from this dis­or­der in vary­ing de­grees, be­cause there is noth­ing quite like a con­trived cri­sis to gen­er­ate sym­pa­thy or de­flect at­ten­tion away from par­tic­u­lar short­com­ings.

Fol­low­ing the seizure of 22kgs of co­caine at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port in Au­gust, the pub­lic was told that cer­tain crim­i­nal el­e­ments were prepar­ing to wage a war in Trin­ba­go the likes of which has nev­er been seen be­fore. In the words of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty him­self, the scale of the vi­o­lence that was planned would have "made the coup seem like a tea par­ty". Notwith­stand­ing the dam­ag­ing ef­fect that Sandy's "tea par­ty" con­no­ta­tion would have had on the morale of the Imam and his fol­low­ing down in Mu­cu­rapo, most peo­ple were will­ing to buy in­to his ex­pla­na­tion in the hope that the state of emer­gency (SoE) would yield some mean­ing­ful re­sults. To say that what fol­lowed there­after was far­ci­cal, wouldn't even be­gin to de­scribe it.

A rogue's gallery of sprangers, jam­mettes, hus­tlers, small-time push­er men, and mis­cre­ant fa­thers were ar­rest­ed un­der an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion, dressed up in wolves' cloth­ing, and hauled be­fore the courts on the most spu­ri­ous of charges. Every seized ten-piece of weed came to be pa­rad­ed as though it were a tonne of Colom­bian pure, and every rust­ed gun, as though it were a nu­clear-tipped WMD it­self. The pow­ers-that-be as­sured us that big fish were be­ing reeled in every day. Even Stern John, one-time leader of the no­to­ri­ous So­ca War­riors Foot­ball Gang, could not es­cape the clutch­es of the SoE when it fi­nal­ly caught up with him for the heinous of­fence of lim­ing past the cur­few.

The fact that all those ar­rest­ed un­der an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion have now walked free, af­ter the State de­cid­ed that it could of­fer no ev­i­dence against them, seems to be of no con­se­quence what­so­ev­er. As far as the au­thor­i­ties are con­cerned, the SoE was a re­sound­ing suc­cess. Mind you, they did find about two gal­lons of il­le­gal diesel from a wrecked barge hid­den in the Sea Lots man­grove, and some scrap iron down on the Beetham-- cred­it where cred­it is due. No soon­er had the ink dried on the de­c­la­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency, though, did this Anan­cy gov­ern­ment set about spin­ning an­oth­er web of high dra­ma and in­trigue.

In his last days in pow­er, for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning was re­viled by al­most every­one in Trin­ba­go-Calder Hart, Ju­liana Pe­na and his wife Hazel apart. In fact, not even Kei­th Row­ley spoke with him any­more. Yet, the clos­est that Man­ning ever came to any harm was when he pitched up un­in­vit­ed at Per­cy "Do So" Vil­lafana's house, tried to barge through the man's gate, and al­most got a clout for his trou­bles. But, we are sup­posed to be­lieve that ow­ing di­rect­ly to the 'suc­cess' of a state of emer­gency that ap­pre­hend­ed not one ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al drug traf­fick­er or mon­ey laun­der­er, that seized no mean­ing­ful as­sets, and root­ed out no high lev­el cor­rupt of­fi­cials, that a sub­stan­tive threat has now been made against the lives of the Prime Min­is­ter and three Cab­i­net of­fi­cials?

How could it be that dur­ing a state of emer­gency-with large swathes of the coun­try un­der lock-down, and not even our trade unions and op­po­si­tion par­ty al­lowed the right of as­sem­bly-this group was able to meet up and hatch a plan to kill the Prime Min­is­ter; an au­da­cious plan, which, ac­cord­ing to the au­thor­i­ties, in­volved the im­por­ta­tion of sniper ri­fles and ex­plo­sives, and the car­ry­ing out of ex­ten­sive train­ing at a farm in east Trinidad? Or, why in­deed would such a dis­parate group of in­di­vid­u­als-a mid­dle-aged Is­lam­ic schol­ar from Freeport, a con­struc­tion mag­nate's son, an ex-sol­dier from Pic­ton, a po­lice sergeant based in St Clair, and Sel­wyn "Robo­cop" Alex­is, of all peo­ple-come to­geth­er and de­cide to kill Roodal Mooni­lal? "Roodal who?" I hear you ask.

Charges may yet be brought against those de­tained in this melee, but it will be in­ter­est­ing to note in what scope they dif­fer from that which was so sen­sa­tion­al­ly al­leged a week ago. The prob­lem with gov­ern­ment pro­pa­gan­da, is that whilst there tends to be a few dis­cern­ing souls who ques­tion things that don't quite add up, they are al­most al­ways out­num­bered by a far greater mass of ig­no­rant souls who bite on any and every bone that is thrown their way.

I would like to leave you with a quote from an ar­ti­cle that was writ­ten in this very news­pa­per on Sun­day De­cem­ber 18, 2005: "The ero­sion of hu­man rights and the en­large­ment of state pow­er (that can be lat­er mis­used and abused) nor­mal­ly take place in the height of a cri­sis, with the full sup­port of the peo­ple, be­cause ra­tio­nal thought is over­whelmed by pan­ic and fear." Back then, the au­thor was an up and com­ing young politi­cian just be­gin­ning to make his mark. To­day, Anand Ram­lo­gan serves as the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad & To­ba­go. For­give them fa­ther, for they know ex­act­ly what they do.