An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

As the Gov­ern­ment moves to im­ple­ment Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) af­ter the State of Emer­gency (SoE) ex­pires on Jan­u­ary 31, res­i­dents of Rich­plain in Diego Mar­tin say their com­mu­ni­ty does not re­quire such in­ter­ven­tion. Still, some con­cede that the stig­ma of the area be­ing a crime hotspot and its as­so­ci­a­tion with the late Ja­maat al Mus­limeen leader Yasin Abu Bakr could make its in­clu­sion like­ly.

Giv­ing his name on­ly as Mike, a Rich­plain res­i­dent shrugged and said, “We here nor­mal, yuh know. This is a nor­mal com­mu­ni­ty, yuh know. Don’t mind it might have the lil small quar­relling and ting, the lil do­mes­tic some­thing ... that’s noth­ing, we go fix that. But here cool. I can’t tell you when last I hear gun­shots up in Rich­plain here.”

Com­mu­ni­ty el­der John, aged 72, de­clared, “No, no, no. We are a peace-lov­ing peo­ple in this area. Every­body go about their busi­ness, mind their own, and every­thing is good. We have no prob­lem in Rich­plain.”

Asked how he would feel with a lock­down and cur­few in the area, he replied, “I think they should ask the res­i­dents first. You don’t do things just so.”

A third man, who re­fused to pro­vide his name, added, “Yes, they need it,” while a fourth, who al­so re­fused to speak on cam­era, said, “No.”

Asked what Rich­plain need­ed, he said, “Wa­ter and a bet­ter road.”

Chal­leng­ing any­one to walk in­to any po­lice sta­tion in the West­ern Di­vi­sion and ask when last Rich­plain was in the news re­lat­ing to crime, the res­i­dent said, “Them po­lice just stereo­typ­ing the youths up here.”

Asked if he be­lieved Rich­plain could end up be­ing one of the ar­eas list­ed on the sched­ule of ZOSOS, he shook his head and said, “Yes, it is al­ways tar­get­ed.”

He added, “Rich­plain have a his­to­ry, way back from Abu Bakr days. He born and grow up here, and then the men and them who held the rev­o­lu­tion from the 70s were from up here, so it al­ways had a his­to­ry.”

Seat­ed next to him at the pop­u­lar spot, his friend said that, in ad­di­tion to the much-need­ed in­fra­struc­tur­al im­prove­ments in the area, the au­thor­i­ties should al­so fo­cus on tar­get­ing those re­spon­si­ble for im­port­ing il­le­gal firearms and nar­cotics, which were fu­elling con­flicts among the youth.

“Who you feel does bring in all the guns?” he asked. “You feel we could bring in them guns? Wha bout the big shots and them? No­body ain’t watch­ing them. They watch­ing the youths and them and have them killing one an­oth­er when they get frus­trat­ed.”

Res­i­dent Roger Small laughed as he said he didn’t have to wait on Gov­ern­ment to des­ig­nate Diego Mar­tin a ZOSOS.

“We can’t re­al­ly get away from that, al­though it is not re­al­ly a hotspot area. The po­lice do make it a hotspot area be­cause of the lil crime and the lil ad­van­tage, but I don’t find they should come with that,” he in­sist­ed.

“I don’t like that be­cause it come like you giv­ing the po­lice full au­thor­i­ty to do any one of the youths any­thing on the block be­cause re­mem­ber, you have no State of emer­gency, you have no cur­few, so what you go­ing to do now? De­ploy 250 sol­diers in Rich­plain or Covi­gne or Bagatelle? I don’t find that mak­ing sense. It hasn’t made sense cause alyuh lock­ing up peo­ple, and it have no ev­i­dence, noth­ing. So it don’t make sense.”

Small be­lieves when the SoE ex­pires, “That should be it. I find they should just leave it just so and done.”

He said there was no ev­i­dence to show that the SoE was ef­fec­tive. “All what alyuh do, alyuh ain’t stop crime with­in that space of time alyuh there. Crime ain’t stop; crime still go­ing on.

“Peo­ple lost faith in the po­lice bad bad,” Small went on, “You feel if I get in­jured, you feel I go­ing in the sta­tion? I not go­ing there.”