Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­perville@guardian.co.tt

Care­nage res­i­dents are di­vid­ed on a re­cent de­ci­sion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to with­draw spe­cial op­er­a­tions ac­tiv­i­ties from con­stituen­cies held by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), with some say­ing the de­ci­sion would not af­fect them, while oth­ers are urg­ing her to re­con­sid­er.

Care­nage falls un­der the Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy cur­rent­ly led by Hans Des Vi­gnes and pre­vi­ous­ly held by for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

When Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Haig Street yes­ter­day, res­i­dent Hay­den George said he was not both­ered by Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s threat to keep height­ened po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties in Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) con­stituen­cies, ar­gu­ing that keep­ing in­ten­si­fied po­lice ac­tiv­i­ties out­side of Care­nage would not large­ly af­fect their lives, as he felt the com­mu­ni­ty was peace­ful enough as it is.

“It doesn’t re­al­ly mat­ter how she (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) car­ries it about... if some peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty see it fit to come, I have no prob­lem with that, but if they are op­posed to it, well then that’s their choice.

“But from Point Cumana to straight up here in Haig Street, the place has been so nice. You can see Care­nage hasn’t had any mur­ders in a while; even the po­lice is prob­a­bly hap­py.”

Re­fer­ring to three sep­a­rate dou­ble mur­ders that took place with­in walk­ing dis­tance of each oth­er in Abbe Pou­jade Street and Scor­pi­on Al­ley, in Care­nage, be­tween late Ju­ly and ear­ly Au­gust in 2023, George said he felt the peace was a re­sult of proac­tive com­mu­ni­ty-based ini­tia­tives and a will­ing­ness of res­i­dents to stop the blood­shed.

He, how­ev­er, urged the Gov­ern­ment to in­vest more ef­forts in pro­vid­ing jobs, as he felt em­ploy­ment would go a long way to­wards fur­ther re­duc­ing what lit­tle crime re­mained.

“If a man doesn’t have em­ploy­ment and isn’t strong in his own mind or strong in his faith, what you think he go­ing and do?

“That will bring prob­lems be­cause he still has to feed his fam­i­ly; he doesn’t care... by any means nec­es­sary he will try to feed his fam­i­ly, and that’s where the crime will al­ways lie.”

George, who earns a liv­ing as an up­hol­ster­er, said his work­shop was sur­pris­ing­ly in­ac­tive de­spite there usu­al­ly be­ing a lot of busi­ness in the months lead­ing up to Christ­mas.

Mean­while, an­oth­er life­long Haig Street res­i­dent, 75-year-old Leopold Den­nis, told Guardian Me­dia he found Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to ex­clude PNM con­stituen­cies as di­vi­sive, as he felt she should not have ex­clud­ed ar­eas on the ba­sis of po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

“It look­ing like it’s a sep­a­ra­tion thing... I don’t like what she’s do­ing. She’s mak­ing the place look like it’s di­vid­ed with UNC con­stituen­cies get­ting the ben­e­fit and to hell with the PNM peo­ple.”

Den­nis, how­ev­er, main­tained that he was not im­pressed by the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, as he ques­tioned how clos­ing off por­tions of a com­mu­ni­ty would be ex­e­cut­ed for peo­ple who lived near an area of height­ened op­er­a­tions.

“If you have to go to work now, you have to pass through here... there’s no way around this street. I find the per­mit thing is too much of prob­lems.

“We not miss­ing out on any­thing with that...they have to come bet­ter.”

How­ev­er, one woman in up­per Big Yard, said that while elect­ed MPs were op­posed to the strat­e­gy, she was sup­port­ive of it as there was a need for greater se­cu­ri­ty in the area.

Re­spond­ing to con­cerns over po­lice ha­rass­ment and “heavy-hand­ed” tac­tics raised by the Op­po­si­tion, the woman said she pre­ferred see­ing armed po­lice of­fi­cers on her street, as op­posed to armed ban­dits.

“When po­lice walk­ing around with their guns, we could sit down out­side here and talk like we talk­ing as nor­mal right now, but if the ban­dits walk­ing with their guns, I have to run in­side.

“I not against what she do­ing be­cause these young peo­ple these days, I fear them more than I fear the po­lice. Yes, I know some po­lice in­volved in their non­sense thing, but I more fear these young boys... they are out of con­trol.”

An­oth­er Big Yard res­i­dent said she al­so en­dorsed the pro­posed Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill and was dis­ap­point­ed to hear about the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sion, not­ing that she felt parts of Care­nage and Diego Mar­tin could ben­e­fit from the strat­e­gy.

“From La Puer­ta quite down to Bagatelle and here we need­ed some­thing like that to hold down the peace.

“Peo­ple mak­ing a fuss over how they could call a cur­few in an area, but we done un­der a cur­few even with­out the po­lice around, so what is their point?”

The woman al­so urged the Prime Min­is­ter to think about the im­pli­ca­tions of hav­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions in cer­tain ar­eas, but not oth­ers, as crim­i­nals would be pushed from UNC con­stituen­cies where the strat­e­gy was in ef­fect to oth­er parts of the coun­try.

“I would ask her (Per­sad-Bisses­sar) to give us a chance be­cause to me, the crim­i­nals who would be in those zones would come down here be­cause they have friends and may have fam­i­ly and thing, so they would leave the hot zone and come down here and we would be vul­ner­a­ble.”