Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) has called for po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers to help se­cure schools in crime-rav­aged com­mu­ni­ties. 

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor David Nakhid made the call on be­half of the par­ty when he ad­dressed its week­ly press brief­ing from its head­quar­ters in Ch­agua­nas yes­ter­day morn­ing. 

Re­fer­ring to the mur­ders in east Port-of-Spain last week of 50-year-old Amoa Howe, who was shot dead out­side the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, and 12-year-old Ezekiel Paria, who was shot in his head by a stray bul­let while rid­ing his bi­cy­cle near his Laven­tille home, Nakhid called for the in­ter­ven­tion of mem­bers of the pro­tec­tive ser­vices. 

“Chil­dren can­not con­tin­ue to be trau­ma­tised. Whether you de­ploy some of the army or whether you de­ploy our po­lice, we are call­ing for an im­me­di­ate de­ploy­ment in those ar­eas to pro­tect our chil­dren,” he said.

“Our chil­dren can­not keep get­ting gunned down every day. It is im­pos­si­ble,” he added. 

Nakhid al­so called on the Gov­ern­ment to take steps to “starve” gangs of their hu­man re­source. 

“You have to tar­get. You have to sur­gi­cal­ly go in­to the com­mu­ni­ties and put pro­grammes so peo­ple can have an al­ter­na­tive to pick­ing up a gun and can find a job,” he said. 

Nakhid sug­gest­ed that Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had been un­fair­ly crit­i­cised for her “emp­ty the clip” com­ments while speak­ing on home in­va­sions as the par­ty had put for­ward com­pre­hen­sive pro­pos­als for ad­dress­ing crime dur­ing its re­cent town hall meet­ings. 

“Peo­ple fo­cused on emp­ty­ing the clip but it was big­ger than that. It (the pro­pos­als) were heavy and iron-fist­ed but it was based on so­cial pro­grammes,” Nakhid said, as he warned that crime would con­tin­ue un­less pover­ty is ad­dressed. 

He al­so took aim at Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who at­tend­ed Guyana’s En­er­gy Con­fer­ence and Sup­ply Chain Ex­po last week, ac­cus­ing him of fail­ing to show com­pas­sion for vic­tims of crime by vis­it­ing some of them. 

“He is not on­ly an ab­sen­tee, he has ab­scond­ed,” Nakhid de­clared. 

The Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor al­so called for trade unions and NGOs aligned to high crime ar­eas to break their si­lence on the coun­try’s crime sit­u­a­tion. 

“I am call­ing on all these com­mit­tees and their fig­ure­heads, who like to have one event a year so we can play African for a day, I am call­ing on you all to start to hold them to ac­count,” he said. 

Ch­agua­nas East Van­dana Mo­hit, who al­so spoke at the news con­fer­ence re­it­er­at­ed calls made by Per­sad-Bisses­sar for a “chil­dren of crime fund” to be es­tab­lished to as­sist chil­dren who lost par­ents due to mur­der. 

“This should be di­rect­ed at those chil­dren who are vul­ner­a­ble and may have fall­en through the cracks,” she said.