To­day's Ed­i­to­r­i­al

?Re­lief and sat­is­fac­tion mark re­spons­es to the re­port that po­lice have ar­rest­ed and charged a sus­pect with the at­tempt­ed mur­der in To­ba­go of the Eng­lish vis­i­tors, Pe­ter and Mir­i­um Greene. Pos­i­tive re­sults of crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tions, with­in one week, are im­pres­sive. The de­tec­tive work that made it pos­si­ble ap­pears ex­em­plary, and em­i­nent­ly wor­thy of com­men­da­tion. The at­tack on the Greenes, who are still be­ing treat­ed in hos­pi­tal, made in­ter­na­tion­al news, and was, nat­u­ral­ly, high­light­ed in the British me­dia. The UK is an im­por­tant source of clients for To­ba­go's sta­ple tourism in­dus­try. The ad­verse pub­lic­i­ty of the at­tack and the stern­er trav­el ad­vi­sories is­sued, in re­sponse by the British and oth­er for­eign of­fices, rep­re­sent se­ri­ous­ly bad news for both To­ba­go and Trinidad, and for tourist-ar­rival prospects in dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic times.

Crime, as some trav­ellers have con­ced­ed, is an in­ter­na­tion­al scourge. No des­ti­na­tion can guar­an­tee tourists safe­ty; none is as safe as it used to be. But peo­ple, who can still af­ford it, will choose to va­ca­tion in places of­fer­ing some rea­son­able as­sur­ance of pro­tec­tion to those un­fa­mil­iar with the lo­cale, the lan­guage, the cul­ture, and the po­ten­tial dan­gers. It is how To­ba­go mea­sures up in re­la­tion to such cri­te­ria that has made the at­tack on the Greenes trou­bling. By any stan­dards, it was a bru­tal episode; the per­pe­tra­tor was ev­i­dent­ly more mo­ti­vat­ed to in­flict fa­tal in­jury, cause dis­fig­ure­ment and suf­fer­ing, than to rob the cou­ple. The re­sults could be rep­re­sent­ed as bear­ing the marks of a hate crime, rather than the more fa­mil­iar snatch of wal­lets, cell­phones, hand­bags and cam­eras.

Nor yet, for the rep­u­ta­tion of To­ba­go, was the at­tack in Ba­co­let last week all that rare. Mem­o­ry is fresh of oth­er such vi­o­la­tions, some with fa­tal re­sults. To­ba­go has been shown to lack not on­ly the means to pre­vent such preda­to­ry as­saults on its vis­i­tors, but al­so the ca­pac­i­ty to ap­pre­hend and pun­ish the preda­tors for de­ter­rent ef­fect. Low de­tec­tion rates for vi­o­lent crimes, par­tic­u­lar­ly mur­ders, have been a de­plorable Trinidad and To­ba­go phe­nom­e­non. When this ap­plies to crimes against tourists in To­ba­go, how­ev­er, a wider di­men­sion of ac­tu­al and po­ten­tial eco­nom­ic harm must be reck­oned with. In com­mon with oth­er sen­sa­tion­al crimes, draw­ing na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion, the Greenes' case gal­vanised po­lice ac­tion.

Spe­cial­ist in­ves­ti­ga­tors were rushed to To­ba­go, and sol­diers were de­ployed to strength­en pa­trols in pre­dictably vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas. In longer-term re­sponse, Tourism Min­is­ter Joseph Ross an­nounced plans to as­sign po­lice on horse­back, and oth­ers with track­ing dogs, to keep watch on To­ba­go beach­es. Two emer­gency hot­lines are to be in­stalled. Un­der un­sym­pa­thet­ic in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny, the au­thor­i­ties need to be seen to be tak­ing To­ba­go tourism se­cu­ri­ty se­ri­ous­ly. Episodes like last week's have been on­ly in­creas­ing in fre­quen­cy. The test of of­fi­cial se­ri­ous­ness will be the proven ca­pac­i­ty to sus­tain at­ten­tion and the ap­pli­ca­tion of re­sources new­ly in­ject­ed. The 25-year-old sus­pect from Ar­gyle in To­ba­go is re­port­ed to have con­fessed, un­der in­ter­ro­ga­tion, not on­ly to mu­ti­lat­ing the Greenes last week, but al­so to the ear­li­er killing of a vis­i­tor.

Every­one looks for­ward to the sat­is­fac­to­ry clos­ing of this and oth­er un­solved cas­es. In­ves­tiga­tive re­sources now poured in­to To­ba­go, how­ev­er, ought to yield ev­i­dence more com­pre­hen­sive and com­pelling than the ex­trac­tion of a con­fes­sion, which should prop­er­ly have been video­taped. Again and again in the T&T courts, such con­fes­sions have proved no­to­ri­ous­ly li­able to be dis­cred­it­ed. Na­tion­al shock over the bru­tal­i­sa­tion of the Greenes could turn to na­tion­al shame, if law en­forcers fail, yet again, to get their man, and make their charges stick.