Raphael John-Lall

Car­ni­val 2010 seems to have been a safe one for many mas spec­ta­tors. Yes­ter­day, some were look­ing at pass­ing bands, oth­ers were hav­ing lunch–pelau, fried rice, fried chick­en, sal­ad, mac­a­roni pie–on the pave­ment, while oth­er spec­ta­tors were rest­ing in the shade from the day's heat. Robert Lall, from Lon­don, Eng­land, who was sit­ting on the Bri­an Lara Prom­e­nade, Port-of-Spain, with four oth­er Eng­lish­men, drink­ing cold beers, de­scribed his 12th Car­ni­val sea­son in Trinidad as safe. "I re­mem­ber when I first came to Trinidad dur­ing the 1990s, there was talk of kid­nap­pings and that type of thing. Now things seems to be much qui­eter. This year there's much more of the po­lice and army. Every­thing seems much safer," Lall said. He went so far as to say that this Car­ni­val was so safe, he would en­cour­age his oth­er British friends to re­turn next year. "Next year, I'll be cer­tain­ly be invit­ing my friends back to T&T for an­oth­er Car­ni­val. They're en­joy­ing it. It was safe," he said.

Scary

An­tho­ny Fran­cis, a Tri­ni who has been liv­ing in Lon­don for the past ten years, de­scribed his ex­pe­ri­ence this Car­ni­val as a "scary one." His pre­vi­ous Car­ni­val was in 2007. "Car­ni­val is a nice time to re­turn to T&T, but this year the ex­pe­ri­ence was not nice," he said. "On Car­ni­val Mon­day night, out­side Smokey and Bun­ty, St James, there were gun­shots and peo­ple start­ed to run in all di­rec­tions. Po­lice act­ed prompt­ly and they were quick­ly on the scene." De­scrib­ing it as just one in­ci­dent, he said the rest of his Car­ni­val ex­pe­ri­ence in T&T this year was fan­tas­tic. "The steel­bands were great, the mu­sic was great. Every­thing else was fine," he said.

Se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras

Dolsie Gur­dass from Cunu­pia, who was hav­ing lunch on the Prom­e­nade, said things were much qui­eter than last Car­ni­val. "So far, I haven't seen any in­ci­dents of vi­o­lence," she said. "I guess with the se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras and every­thing else, it im­pact­ed on the se­cu­ri­ty. Al­so, there is a lot of po­lice out this year. They can't be every­where, but it seems to work­ing." Bis­soonath Ram­per­sad from Gas­par­il­lo has been com­ing to Port-of-Spain to look at mas for the past 30 years. He boast­ed that this Car­ni­val was one of the safest he has seen for the past many years.

"Be­cause of the po­lice pres­ence, this has to be one of the safest Car­ni­vals I've seen," he said. "Port-of-Spain dur­ing Car­ni­val is much safer than San Fer­nan­do, Ch­agua­nas or any­where else. "Mon­day night on the news, po­lice were search­ing peo­ple in City Gate. Maybe that scared peo­ple away on Car­ni­val Tues­day. Things re­al­ly qui­et this year." Sham Ram­nath, from Beetham Es­tate, said he be­lieved the crime lev­el was not much dif­fer­ent from last year. "Car­ni­val go­ing good this year, but there is still a cer­tain lev­el of crime," he said. "Po­lice not re­al­ly study­ing the peo­ple. Every year peo­ple los­ing their chil­dren to crime. Car­ni­val may be nice, but it not nice to every­one."