The Cus­toms De­part­ment at Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port un­jus­ti­fi­ably seized pieces of my non-mil­i­tary-styled, sim­u­lat­ed cam­ou­flage-pat­terned ap­par­el, pur­port­ed­ly un­der the purview of the law un­der Le­gal No­tice No 33, Sec­tion 38, of the Cus­toms Or­di­nance, Ch 32, No 2. The law reads:

"...Where­as it is pro­vid­ed by Sec­tion 38 of the Cus­toms Or­di­nance, Ch 32, No 2, that the Pres­i­dent may, from time to time, by procla­ma­tion pro­hib­it the im­por­ta­tion, car­riage coast­wise or ex­por­ta­tion of any goods what­so- ever; "And where­as it is deemed ex­pe­di­ent that the im­por­ta­tion of cam­ou­flage pat­tern ma­te­r­i­al be pro­hib­it­ed; "Now, there­fore, I, El­lis Em­manuel In­no­cent Clarke, Pres­i­dent as afore­said, in ex­er­cise of the pow­ers con­ferred on me by sec­tion 38 of the said or­di­nance, do here­by pro­hib­it the im­por­ta­tion of cam­ou­flage pat­tern ma­te­ri­als un­less the Min­is­ter of Na- tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty cer­ti­fies that the im­por­ta­tion there­of is for the use of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force..."

That law is im­pre­cise, stu­pid, and whim­si­cal, and be­ing con­strued and ex­er­cised by the Cus­toms De­part­ment as such. Ac- cord­ing to Bum­ble, in Charles Dick­ens' Oliv­er Twist, "the law is an a--." It needs to be amend­ed, or abol­ished. In T&T, peo­ple wear and use mil­i­tary-styled cam­ou­flage ac­ces­sories and cloth­ing, bold­ly in­fring­ing the law with im­puni­ty.

My broth­er and I ar­rived in Trinidad from Mi­a­mi last year for the Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions. He was wear­ing a pair of car­go shorts, made out of washed-out, non-mil­i­tary-styled, sim­u­lat­ed cam­ou­flage-pat­terned fab­ric, and shred­ded at the knees. While stand­ing in the "no de­c­la­ra­tions" Green Line, a fe­male Cus­toms of­fi­cer told my broth­er that he should change his pants to avoid hav­ing it seized by Cus­toms.

I had some pieces of non-mil­i­tary, sim­u­lat­ed cam­ou­flage-pat­terned cloth­ing and ac­ces­sories in my suit­case and asked the of­fi­cer whether I would not be able to wear them in Trinidad. An­oth­er burly fe­male of­fi­cer ap­peared and or­dered my broth­er to change his pants and go to the Red Line. She then turned to me and asked, "Yuh have dem here?" I an­swered af­fir­ma­tive­ly. She then said, "Go in de Red Line too. Is yuh hus­ban' way put yuh in dat."

I went to the Red Line as or­dered. A se­ri­ous-faced, young, fe­male of­fi­cer brusque­ly com­mand- ed me to open my suit­cas­es. She pro­ceed­ed to rav­age the items with in­cred­i­ble fe­roc­i­ty, as though search­ing for con­cealed con­tra­band. I stood sto­ical­ly while the of­fi­cer as­sailed my dig­ni­ty, and my lug­gage. She re­moved five items-a cold-shoul­der top, a short skirt (about four inch­es above the knee), a scarf, a cap, and a pair of ta­pered Don­na Karan jeans. She came up­on my Kathy Van Zee­land de­sign­er hand­bag, made of gold, pur­ple, brown, and grey tin­sel fab­ric, against a pewter-coloured back­ground, in a sim­u­lat­ed cam­ou­flage de­sign. That hand­bag looked noth­ing like a mil­i­tary ac­ces­so­ry.

The of­fi­cer pulled out the hand­bag and shout­ed, "Em'ty de bag!" I re­fused. She bois­ter­ous­ly re­peat­ed her de­mand. I de­lib­er­ate­ly be­gan wail­ing vo­cif­er­ous­ly to as­suage my sup­pressed, seething anger. Se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel rushed to see what was caus­ing the com­mo­tion. One of them took over the search. He placed the Kathy Van Zee­land hand­bag back in the suit­case, which he re­turned to me. That pre­pos­ter­ous pur­suit of my hand­bag was thwart­ed.

An­oth­er young fe­male Cus­toms of­fi­cer came by and told me that in or­der to com­mit crime "ban­dits" were us­ing cam­ou­flage out­fits to pass as mem­bers of the De­fence Force. The seized items were to be sent to the force. I then in­quired why the law was not pub­li­cised to fore­warn vis­i­tors. She showed me a mis­sive on 8" x 10" pa­per, at one of the of­fi­cers' sta­tions, which looked more like an in­terof­fice memo than a warn­ing no­tice.

Sec­tion 38 of the Cus­toms Or­di­nance must be re-ex­am­ined. It is un­even­ly and il­log­i­cal­ly ap­plied. Cur­rent­ly, it en­ables Cus­toms to de­ci­pher and ap­ply it sub­jec­tive­ly. Two re­cent ex­am­ples il­lus­trate how this law is laugh­able. In a me­dia ad­dress to the pub­lic dur­ing last year's state of emer­gency, Capt Alexan­der of the De­fence Force an­nounced that cam- ou­flage-pat­terned items must be turned in to the force. Non-com­pli­ance would re­sult in their seizure, a fine of $1,000, or 18 months' im­pris­on­ment.

Hours af­ter Alexan­der's edict, I saw a store on Queen Street open-ly sell­ing mil­i­tary-styled cam­ou­flage back­packs. Be­fore my de- par­ture in De­cem­ber, the items were still be­ing sold. I re­turned in Feb­ru­ary, and up to a few days be­fore Car­ni­val, they were on sale.

It is an­ger­ing when I re­call how the Cus­toms of­fi­cer had tried to ap­pro­pri­ate my Kathy Van Zee­land hand­bag which in no way re­sem­bles a mil­i­tary-styled bag. At this year's Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta, each of the back-up singers for Con­tender was dressed in some form of mil­i­tary-styled cam­ou­flage ap­par­el or ac­ces­so­ry. Why was Sec­tion 38 of the Cus­toms Or­di­nance not be­ing im­posed at Skin­ner Park?

An­oth­er prob­lem with that law is that it is writ­ten in lan­guage fraught with am­bi­gu­i­ties, and de­void of speci­fici­ties. For ex­am­ple, the terms "im­por­ta­tion" and "ma­te­ri­als" should be clar­i­fied and ex­em­pli­fied. Does "im­por­ta­tion" mean bring­ing in per­son­al cloth­ing, used or un­used, meant to be worn or used by the own­er, or does it mean items be­ing brought in­to T&T for com­mer­cial pur­pos­es?

Does "ma­te­ri­als" mean raw fab­ric, new ap­par­el made out of cam­ou­flage-pat­terned fab­ric, or per- son­al, camoulfage-pat­terned items or ac­ces­sories in sim­u­lat­ed de­signs, such as the items seized from my broth­er and me? The law needs to clar­i­fy what con­sti­tutes "im­por­ta­tion" and "ma­te­ri­als" with specifics and ex­am­ples

Present­ly, Sec­tion 38 of the Cus­toms Or­di­nance opens the door for abuse and un­fair ap­pli­ca­tion at the im­puls­es of Cus­toms of­fi­cers. The neb­u­lous­ness of the lan­guage is prob­lem­at­i­cal and there­fore sub­ject to hap­haz­ard in­ter­pre­ta­tion. That law "is an a--" -the quin­tes­sence of ir­ra­tional­i­ty. It must be re­vis­it­ed and be ei­ther abol­ished or rewrit­ten with more clar­i­ty and pre­cise­ness for prop­er ap­pli­ca­tion.

Dr Lynette M Lash­ley

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