Yvonne Ba­boolal

Pi­rates who are steal­ing boat en­gines from fish­er­men have been ex­chang­ing them for mar­i­jua­na in St Vin­cent, sources in the fish­ing in­dus­try are claim­ing. "The most amount of weed in T&T com­ing out of St Vin­cent," the source said. "We un­der­stand these en­gines are go­ing to St Vin­cent in re­turn for a boat­load of weed.

"These ban­dits are op­er­at­ing around all the fish­ing ports in the coun­try and they are linked. "They op­er­ate out of one of the main rivers in south Trinidad." The source said the mar­i­jua­na is sold on drug blocks through­out T&T. He said while sea pi­rates have been steal­ing boat en­gines for years, the crime has es­ca­lat­ed with­in re­cent times. The lat­est at­tack on fish­er­men oc­curred in the Gulf of Paria re­cent­ly, re­sult­ing in the death of three fish­er­men from San Fer­nan­do and Clax­ton Bay.

Ban­dits with face­masks and armed with guns and cut­lass­es pulled along­side fish­er­men near Oropouche Bay in the Gulf of Paria short­ly af­ter dark in a pirogue and jumped on­to their ves­sels. Pres­i­dent of the Clax­ton Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, Kishore Boodram, who lost the en­gine from his boat, Geron­i­mo, and two of his fish­er­men, Moti­lal Ramkhelawan and Kr­ish­na Apoo, re­called, "They at­tacked four ves­sels that night. Ramkhelawan, 44, left be­hind three chil­dren and a moth­er he sup­port­ed. "They planassed the fish­er­men and told them to jump over­board. It was about one and a half miles from shore and the fish­er­men begged them to throw some­thing for them to hold on to while swim­ming.

LEFT: Fish­er­man Moti­lal Ramkhelawan, in­set, drowned at sea af­ter he was thrown over­board by sea pi­rates. Golin Ramkhelawan, cen­tre, and Ramkhelawan's chil­dren, Crys­tal, left, Ali­cia and Justin. Pho­tos: Tony How­ell

"There were cool­ers and life jack­ets on the boats but they re­fused."

He said Ramkhelawan and Apoo suc­cumbed to a wa­tery death af­ter long hours of swim­ming. Boodram said fish­er­man re­main fear­ful and have not been work­ing at nights. He said next month the mul­let fish will be in abun­dance in the Gulf and they may lose thou­sands of dol­lars in in­come if the sit­u­a­tion is not ad­dressed. If not, fish­er­men will have to "gears up them­selves in dif­fer­ent ways" and take a chance out there, he added. "Fish­er­men must car­ry some­thing to pro­tect them­selves. The ban­dits could make a re­turn at­tack."

Ramkhelawan's broth­er, Raj Ramkhelawan, spoke to the Sun­day Guardian at the Clax­ton Bay port last Wednes­day about how his fam­i­ly has been cop­ing since the tragedy. "He was the sole bread­win­ner in the fam­i­ly. Is re­al pres­sure for them now. "Our moth­er, Golin, 61, was liv­ing with them and tak­ing care of the chil­dren since Moti­lal and his wife sep­a­rat­ed. "All of us help­ing out but is re­al pres­sure. I am a part time fish­er­man and have been los­ing work since the at­tack be­cause the boats are not go­ing out at nights."

RIGHT: Fish­er­men, Kishore Boodram, left, John­ny John and Raj Ramkhelawan at the Clax­ton Bay Fish­ing Port last Wednes­day.

No books for school

Raj said Ramkhelawan's el­dest child, Crys­tal, at­tends Mara­bel­la Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and the sec­ond, Ali­cia, just passed the SEA ex­am­i­na­tion. The youngest, Justin, at­tends pri­ma­ry school. Raj said Crys­tal has a num­ber of tro­phies for out­stand­ing per­for­mance in crick­et while Ali­cia has been show­ing po­ten­tial in foot­ball. "The chil­dren have no­body to help them now. We are beg­ging the So­cial De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter, Glen Ra­mad­hars­ingh, to please come and vis­it them." Golin, who still weeps when she sees a pho­to­graph of her de­ceased son, said he promised to buy the chil­dren's books the Sat­ur­day af­ter he died at sea.

"They still don't have their books. Where he gone, he nev­er reach back," she said sad­ly. She said the chil­dren are trau­ma­tised by the sud­den death of their fa­ther and need coun­selling. John­ny John, un­cle of Ramkhelawan, al­so a part time fish­er­man, added, "When he and the chil­dren moth­er sep­a­rat­ed, Moti­lal worked hard to take care of those chil­dren." John said the fish­ing in­dus­try al­ways pro­vid­ed a small but sure in­come for many in the area and food, as well. He is urg­ing any­one with in­for­ma­tion on the steal­ing of boat en­gines at sea to con­tact the Clax­ton Bay Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion.