Shal­iza Has­sanali

Eleven Mal­oney men, de­scribed by po­lice as gang lead­ers and mem­bers, who were ar­rest­ed dur­ing the state of emer­gency are claim­ing they were used as scape­goats to make the Gov­ern­ment look good in its fight against crime. The men, who cam­paigned and vot­ed for the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment in the May 24, 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion, have vowed not to sup­port Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's regime again. "Not we and the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship again. Tell Kam­la that! Is back to the PNM," said Jer­von Mon­roe, one of the 11 ar­rest­ed.

On Wednes­day, a con­tin­gent of po­lice of­fi­cers ac­com­pa­ny­ing snif­fer dogs swooped down on Build­ing 16 and ar­rest­ed ten men rang­ing in ages 14 to 30. There are 21 build­ings in Mal­oney. Kevin Moore, 21, who was al­so hand­cuffed, pho­tographed and de­tained for 24 hours at the Arou­ca Po­lice Sta­tion, said the po­lice stat­ed that the build­ing had the "biggest and bad­dest gang lead­ers and guns," which they in­tend­ed to wipe out. The po­lice, Moore said, al­so searched the men for co­caine, am­mu­ni­tion and mar­i­jua­na.

Po­lice leave emp­ty hand­ed

Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 64 apart­ments were searched and ran­sacked, some doors were kicked down, Moore said, with the po­lice com­ing up emp­ty hand­ed. "Miss, they ain't find one gun...not even a bul­let, a five piece or an ounce of co­caine," Moore said. "It have no gang mem­bers in here. They look­ing in the wrong place. Miss, no­body here is in­volved in crime. We not dis­re­spect­ful. You could ask any­body in the build­ing." The men said they were not giv­en an ex­pla­na­tion as to why they were ar­rest­ed.

"We were tak­en to the build­ing's carpark where we were pho­tographed by the po­lice in full view of on­look­ers and ten­ants," said Mon­roe (Jer­von). "They gave the im­pres­sion that we were want­ed by the law and fi­nal­ly nabbed." Moore said that the on­ly thing they were guilty of was lim­ing out­side the build­ing, rather than get­ting in­volved in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties. At the sta­tion, Moore said they en­quired why they were be­ing de­tained, but they got no an­swer. Moore ad­mit­ted that this was not the first time he had been ar­rest­ed.

On Thurs­day, the men, who claimed they were man­han­dled and roughed up, were re­leased with­out be­ing charged. Moore said the po­lice threat­ened to come af­ter him, stress­ing that he was now a marked man. On Fri­day, the au­thor­i­ties said a to­tal of 462 per­sons had been ar­rest­ed, in­clud­ing two peo­ple de­scribed as the coun­try's biggest lead­ers of well-known crim­i­nal gangs in Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain. The two gang lead­ers were ar­rest­ed on Fri­day at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel.

Used as scape­goats

Nicholas Samuel, who was spared from be­ing ar­rest­ed due to the fact that he was the on­ly adult at home with his younger broth­ers, stat­ed that the 11 de­tainees were used as scape­goats in the state of emer­gency. "The Gov­ern­ment go­ing af­ter peo­ple in the ghet­to to make it look like they weed­ing out gang lead­ers and they se­ri­ous about crime. But in­no­cent peo­ple falling prey to this. This is not right." Samuel said he had no prob­lem with the po­lice do­ing their work.

"I too want to see the crim­i­nals be­hind bars. They have this coun­try un­der siege." Samuel ques­tioned the rea­son for the lock­down, which he in­sist­ed was on­ly a "pap­pyshow" to make the Gov­ern­ment look good. Samuel ad­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment, stat­ing that he want­ed change in the PNM strong­hold area since un­em­ploy­ment and so­cial pro­grammes were sad­ly lack­ing. "All of we here cam­paigned for the Gov­ern­ment. We even vot­ed for them."

Back to the PNM

In light of the in­ci­dent, which has left a bit­ter taste in the mouths of the men, Samuel vowed they will not be vot­ing for the par­ty again in 2015 gen­er­al elec­tion. "Is back to the PNM." The men said it made no sense seek­ing le­gal rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the mat­ter, since they felt they would be vic­timised and hound­ed. David Phillip of Build­ing 17, said he too was round­ed up dur­ing the po­lice crack­down be­cause of his Rasta­far­i­an hair­style. Luck­i­ly Phillip, 56, was re­leased af­ter one po­lice of­fi­cer recog­nised him.

State of emer­gency a smoke screen

Wav­ing his Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress and Con­gress of the Peo­ple par­ty cards, Phillip said he was dis­en­chant­ed with the Gov­ern­ment's han­dling of the state of emer­gency. "I don't like what they do­ing," he said, vent­ing his feel­ings. A well-known ac­tivist, Phillip said the PP were on­ly go­ing af­ter the small man and peo­ple liv­ing in the ghet­to, which an­gered him. "I tell you flat. I don't like what they do­ing. What is good for the goose should be good for the gan­der." Phillip said the Gov­ern­ment called a state of emer­gency to di­vert the unions from shut­ting down the coun­try. "It's a smoke screen. That is how I look at it."

Hav­ing worked his fin­gers to the bone to en­sure the par­ty got in­to Gov­ern­ment, Phillip said he was still job­less, even though he was promised em­ploy­ment. De­spite be­ing in­ter­viewed for a handy man job at the Min­istry of Health, Phillip said: "I am not go­ing to beg them for any­thing. I will make sure they come out of of­fice. I fed up with politi­cians." He com­plained that he was un­able to pay his rent and was ow­ing the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion over $10,000 in ar­rears. Stuck on the front of his door were sev­er­al yel­low and white minia­ture COP and PP stick­ers, which are tes­ti­mo­ny to his al­le­giance to the par­ties. Phillip said in front of this very door, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Win­ston Dook­er­an and Sports Min­is­ter Anil Roberts vis­it­ed pri­or to elec­tion.

"I bend over back­wards cam­paign­ing for them. Every­day I mo­bilised peo­ple. They used to send maxi taxis in front of my house to pick up sup­port­ers from in here to go to po­lit­i­cal meet­ings. Most of the men who were ar­rest­ed as gang mem­bers ac­com­pa­nied me to these meet­ings and even vot­ed for the par­ty." Phillip said the men were in­stru­men­tal in mak­ing a life-size bris­tol board cof­fin car­ry­ing Patrick Man­ning, then prime min­is­ter and Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment leader, dur­ing the fi­nal PP ral­ly at the Aranguez Sa­van­nah. "We buried the PNM and Man­ning and if we have to do it for the PP, then so be it."