Gail Alexan­der

Launch of the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion's (HDC) "Colour me Or­ange" job pro­gramme - part of Gov­ern­ment's an­ti-crime plan - end­ed on a sour note yes­ter­day as po­lice ar­rest­ed one par­tic­i­pant in con­nec­tion with an in­ci­dent fol­low­ing the event. The HDC func­tion at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre, St Ann's, launched an as­pect of Gov­ern­ment's so­cial in­ter­ven­tion ef­fort with­in its an­ti-crime plan, in­tend­ed as a fol­low-up mea­sure to the state of emer­gency. The pro­gramme of­fers em­ploy­ment from this month to Feb­ru­ary to per­sons from "hot spots" and low-in­come ar­eas to re­fur­bish HDC es­tates. Yes­ter­day's HDC launch was at­tend­ed by over 1,000 ap­pli­cants, main­ly youths, who had gath­ered since ear­ly morn­ing for the event, sched­uled to start at 9 am.

The or­ange-clad par­tic­i­pants formed two long lines from out­side the east­ern Hilton court­yard all the way up some stairs in­to the foy­er, lead­ing to the Hilton Ball­room venue. How­ev­er, the func­tion did not get un­der­way un­til 10.20 am and by that time scores of par­tic­i­pants were im­pa­tient, tired and mut­ter­ing com­plaints soft­ly. Su­per­vised by num­bers of ri­fle-tot­ing po­lice­men, they were even­tu­al­ly al­lowed in­to the ball­room by groups of 20. Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who ar­rived at 10.38 am, en­tered the ball­room, ac­com­pa­nied by for­mer PNM stal­wart Chris­tine "Twig­gy" Livia. The au­di­ence ap­peared slight­ly restive through­out the pro­gramme.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy halt­ed his ad­dress at one point when sev­er­al mur­murs about the length of his ad­dress arose from the back of the au­di­ence. "I'll wait," Sandy told them, wait­ing for the mur­murs to die down. Both Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal and Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when they spoke, al­so called for loud­er "good morn­ings" from the au­di­ence. Per­sad Bisses­sar en­coun­tered sev­er­al calls from the floor for the ex­ten­sion of the pro­gramme, to which she said at one point: "You're not go­ing to pres­sure me to­day. We'll give it con­sid­er­a­tion." HDC CEO, Jear­lene John, in her ad­dress, warned par­tic­i­pants that dis­ci­pline was a key as­pect of the pro­gramme.

HDC health/safe­ty of­fi­cer, Sangee­ta Singh, al­so had warned par­tic­i­pants that no horse­play or il­le­gal sub­stances would be tol­er­at­ed. The func­tion end­ed abrupt­ly af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ad­dress when the HDC team took Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­to the crowd­ed ball­room to meet the scores of par­tic­i­pants be­fore the vote of thanks was done. "Twig­gy", who had brought a con­tin­gent, al­so in­tro­duced Per­sad-Bisses­sar to those per­sons fol­low­ing the pro­gramme. Af­ter the abrupt end, par­tic­i­pants spilled out­side and milled around the ball­room lob­by. As print me­dia were leav­ing the func­tion, sev­er­al youths rushed down the stairs lead­ing out of the Hilton with po­lice in pur­suit.

Sev­er­al of­fi­cers quick­ly grabbed one or­ange-clad youth and wres­tled him to the ground and snapped hand­cuffs on him. He re­mained there, face­down. Oth­er of­fi­cers, in­clud­ing army tac­ti­cal of­fi­cers, sur­round­ed an­oth­er youth. Both youths were in their 20s. While the hand­cuffed youth protest­ed he had not done any­thing, an of­fi­cer told him he was get­ting a charge of ma­li­cious dam­age. Of­fi­cers told re­porters there had been no theft but they point­ed to two dam­aged ve­hi­cles oblique­ly op­po­site to where they had ar­rest­ed the youth. On the ground next to one of the ve­hi­cles, a beige PBX Toy­ota land cruis­er, was bro­ken glass. Al­so on the ground near the oth­er ve­hi­cle, a black SUV, lay a huge stone. Oth­er or­ange-clad par­tic­i­pants sub­se­quent­ly claimed a fight had bro­ken out among sev­er­al youths and that had caused the sit­u­a­tion.

As well as large num­bers of po­lice, groups of De­fence Force ri­ot po­lice, com­plete with hel­mets and bul­let-proof vests, al­so ap­peared on the scene. HDC chair­man Henck­le Lall, leav­ing the venue soon af­ter, told re­porters he was un­aware of the in­ci­dent. A num­ber of par­tic­i­pants al­so had been down-spir­it­ed pri­or to the start of the pro­gramme when they com­plained about the long hours of wait­ing.

Among par­tic­i­pants were sev­er­al per­sons from Nel­son Street, who had been ar­rest­ed, and freed, in the first batch of per­sons on al­leged gang charges. While they said they were hap­py with get­ting jobs, an­oth­er gen­tle­man from South Trinidad ex­pressed an­gry con­cern at the long wait. The East In­di­an man, who gave his age as 55, said: "I leave home at 5 am and we stand­ing up here whole morn­ing in the hot sun.

"They say line up. We don't know why, No­body telling us what go­ing on, No­body cares about poor, black peo­ple." An­oth­er woman said ap­pli­cants were told by HDC they had to at­tend yes­ter­day's launch. They al­so had to buy their or­ange jer­seys which were their uni­forms, she said. "Three jer­seys cost $106 and is de­duct­ed from your salary," she ex­plained. Oth­er par­tic­i­pants said salaries in the pro­gramme range from a min­i­mum of $1,800 a fort­night to high­er sums for skilled per­sons. One woman, Deb­bie, a moth­er of four, said she was glad for the as­sis­tance but she said the three-month pro­gramme would not do as much good un­less it was ex­tend­ed fur­ther. Per­sons were will­ing to speak about the sit­u­a­tion but few want­ed to be pho­tographed or seen on tele­vi­sion for fear of los­ing the job. Fol­low­ing the launch of the pro­gramme scores of par­tic­i­pants were treat­ed by HDC to a lunchtime plate of snacks.