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Tuesday, February 25, 2025

'Whoever pick up, pick up'

by

Ira Mathur
1858 days ago
20200125

"Ma­chine guns every­where. I'm afraid to go to church,” whis­pered a re­cep­tion­ist.

"Gang­sters are book­ing their own fu­ner­als with ex­pen­sive coffins. They know they will die young and a fan­cy fu­ner­al is all they ask of life...They don't fear killing or be­ing killed," said a busi­ness­woman.

Why, we all ask? Why the dai­ly triple homi­cides, why 500 mur­dered? Why this state of siege?

A re­port by re­searcher Jan­i­na Pawelz of the In­sti­tute for Peace Re­search and Se­cu­ri­ty Pol­i­cy at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg (IF­SH) land­ed on my phone like a bomb last week.

Pawelz's pa­per (Hob­s­bawm in Trinidad: un­der­stand­ing con­tem­po­rary modal­i­ties of ur­ban vi­o­lence) should be re­quired read­ing for every sin­gle pol­i­cy­mak­er in T&T.

Jan­i­na Pawelz, an as­so­ciate re­searcher at the Ger­man In­sti­tute of Glob­al and Area (GI­GA), spent four months in Trinidad in 2015 when she in­ter­viewed 53 peo­ple liv­ing in high-risk ar­eas.

"Gang mem­bers per­ceive them­selves as vic­tims of a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem ruled by greedy, pow­er-hun­gry and cor­rupt politi­cians in their coun­try..."

A leader of 'Ras­ta City' told Pawelz that T&T is a rich coun­try, but not every­body prof­its from the coun­try's oil. "While some live in af­flu­ence, oth­ers are de­prived of ba­sic needs such as san­i­tary in­fra­struc­ture."

The gang leader re­count­ed how he grew up in Laven­tille's pover­ty and ac­cused rich Trinida­di­ans of steal­ing from so­ci­ety to 'get them­selves rich', stat­ing that 'the rich peo­ple need to share some of the mon­ey'.

"We live here in Laven­tille, and we still have peo­ple liv­ing with­out toi­lets, with s... holes, la­trines. You know they thief! Every­body thiev­ing in this coun­try! All I know they [their] house big, their fam­i­ly have every­thing.'"

Pawelz quotes a Beetham res­i­dent con­firm­ing so­cial dis­con­tent. "The Gov­ern­ment cream off a large amount and then they trick­le down some [mon­ey] to the mid­dle class and the crumbs to us. Every­body keep grab­bing."

This "self-per­cep­tion" as de­prived vic­tims is a "con­ve­nient life mot­to which they live up to." A gang leader warned Pawelz that "peo­ple are fed up and ready to claim their share. "

An­oth­er gang leader said "politi­cians don't have the in­ter­est of the peo­ple" but have "the dol­lar sign in their hearts" and that "voic­es of the peo­ple are on­ly heard when they be­come vi­o­lent."

"…gangs opt for bru­tal­i­ty to ce­ment their po­si­tion and 'prove their mark' in the com­mu­ni­ty…po­lit­i­cal lead­ers are afraid to go in­to ar­eas such as Laven­tille. The sym­bi­ot­ic give and take of po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age have shift­ed to grid­lock...politi­cians have no choice but to deal with the gangs."

The with­draw­al of the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen from Laven­tille saw the rise of 'the Mus­lims' and 'Ras­ta City' be­tween 2008-2012—"um­brel­la groups with hi­er­ar­chi­cal lead­er­ship and 'tremen­dous in­flu­ence' that split up vast gang ter­ri­to­ry among them­selves."

Pawelz said po­lice point­ed out the "para­dox of hand­ing out con­tracts and so­cial work pro­grammes to gang lead­ers, which en­able them to fi­nance the pur­chase of arms.

"The Gov­ern­ment hands them [gangs] a mil­lion-dol­lar project, and they use the mon­ey to buy ex­pen­sive guns that they use against us!"

Pawelz's pa­per im­plies that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have been black­mailed for decades by 250 gang lead­ers who are giv­en CEPEP fund­ing and con­trol of com­mu­ni­ties in re­turn for keep­ing gun vi­o­lence un­der con­trol.

Their pow­er is "bol­stered by their so­cial role as de­fend­ers and voicers of pub­lic dis­con­tent in their com­mu­ni­ty. The po­lice say the gangs 'don't do ran­dom'. If they are com­ing to shoot you, they shoot­ing you. If they are shoot­ing in­no­cent peo­ple, they are shoot­ing in­no­cent peo­ple. Who­ev­er pick up, pick up'."

Pawelz ob­served that gangs "se­cure their bor­ders through snipers with high-pow­er as­sault ri­fles, lo­cat­ed at des­ig­nat­ed ob­ser­va­tion points. In­vis­i­ble to out­siders, gang ter­ri­to­ry be­gins close to the cap­i­tal city's ma­jor shop­ping street and main bus sta­tion. They are al­so in­volved in drug traf­fick­ing, bur­glar­ies, rob­beries, pros­ti­tu­tion, fraud, and ex­tor­tion through their own le­gal com­pa­nies and NGOs that re­ceive gov­ern­ment con­tracts and dis­pense jobs re­lat­ed to so­cial wel­fare pro­grammes."

Gang lead­ers be­lieve gun vi­o­lence is a "re­sponse to the sta­tus quo; they are the free­dom fight­ers of the op­pressed. 'The poor­est peo­ple of so­ci­ety take up their arms as a strug­gle for sur­vival.'"

We are los­ing this bat­tle against the 30,000-strong gang army. For every man you ar­rest, 100 young­sters are wait­ing to take his place.

The COP and armed forces can’t fix this. The State can't fix this. Busi­ness can’t fix this. NGO's can't fix this. The me­dia can’t fix this. A joint vi­sion can. This is a call on be­half of cit­i­zens for col­lec­tive ac­tion as a peo­ple to ask humbly for a cease­fire, lis­ten re­spect­ful­ly to the hu­man rights lack­ing in these com­mu­ni­ties and fix it start­ing with em­pow­er­ing fam­i­lies and women who can guide their boys. A fish rots from the head down. They are us. We are them.


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