SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Two-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch Michael “Sug­ar Aloes” Os­ouna lives a fa­ther’s worst night­mare–los­ing two sons to gun vi­o­lence.

“My two chil­dren that I lost to gun vi­o­lence ... one is be­cause of a gold chain and the next was be­cause of a girl,” Aloes ex­plained, as he tried to mask his emo­tions with an oc­ca­sion­al smile dur­ing an in­ter­view with the Sun­day Guardian at his Arou­ca home on Tues­day.

Al­though the mur­ders hap­pened 14 years apart, Aloes, 67,  still car­ries the bur­den of these killings on his shoul­ders.

The first to be mur­dered was his 29-year-old son, Imo Os­ouna, who was shot mul­ti­ple times in Sea Lots, Port-of-Spain, in 2006, for stand­ing up against a rob­bery.

Aloes said Imo paid a heavy price with his life.

Still strug­gling to cope with the death of his first son, he was dealt a se­vere blow when a sec­ond son, An­cil Black­man, 39, was fol­lowed and gunned down out­side his New York apart­ment in Ju­ly 2020.

Un­able to cope with the un­ex­pect­ed loss, Aloes said he lost weight.

“To be hon­est, I could tell you this, I lost about 25 pounds since the last time and I have not gained it back. I haven’t catch my­self from the last one.”

He told the Sun­day Guardian that his on­ly so­lace and com­fort now is prayer.

Be­fore join­ing the ca­lyp­so fra­ter­ni­ty, Aloes was a live­stock farmer and butch­er for 29 years. When he is not per­form­ing, Aloes rears four bulls in his back­yard.

A few feet from his front gate, Aloes had two light­ed can­dles and pho­tographs of his de­ceased sons on an an­ces­tral stool where he makes his dai­ly wor­ship.

Above the stool, sev­en Bap­tist flags tied on­to bam­boo poles flut­tered in the breeze.

In a na­tion in­fest­ed with an epi­dem­ic of gun vi­o­lence, Aloes won­ders when it will end.

Re­flect­ing on the mur­ders that have left a void in his life, Aloes said his scars will nev­er heal.

How his sons died

He re­mem­bered Imo was host­ing a bar­beque in Sea Lots to raise funds for a chil­dren’s event that led to his killing.

While sell­ing the meals, Aloes said, Imo heard that a man in the com­mu­ni­ty had stolen a chain from one of his cus­tomers.

Imo re­trieved the chain from the man and gave it back to the cus­tomer.

His son’s ac­tions were deemed dis­re­spect­ful and threats were made on his life.

Days lat­er, while at­tend­ing a chris­ten­ing at Pi­o­neer Dri­ve, Imo was am­bushed and fa­tal­ly shot.

In 2018, Jus­tice Nor­ton Jack read the sen­tence of death by hang­ing to Arnold “Re­do” Isaac for Imo’s killing.

Three years lat­er Isaac ap­pealed his con­vic­tion.

This will be the third tri­al that Isaac will face for his al­leged in­volve­ment in Imo’s death.

While pick­ing up the pieces of his life af­ter the first killing, Aloes re­ceived news that Black­man was killed out­side his Crown Heights, Brook­lyn, apart­ment.

The shoot­er be­lieved that Black­man was mess­ing with his girl­friend.

This was de­nied by Aloes who stat­ed that Black­man and the girl grew up to­geth­er in Trinidad.

“So when they saw one an­oth­er in New York they be­came friends. They were liv­ing in the same build­ing and on the same floor. Late an evening my son was com­ing home from work, and he was fol­lowed and shot to death.”

Aloes had to fly out of the coun­try dur­ing the pan­dem­ic to bury his son.

In his qui­et mo­ments, the bard ad­mit­ted, his thoughts would stray.

“I would re­mem­ber An­cil be­cause he was one of the good ones too.”

A lost gen­er­a­tion

Aloes said peo­ple no longer have val­ue for life and “re­spect for each oth­er and their be­long­ings” as he al­so felt the wrath of crim­i­nals af­ter be­ing robbed.

His trade­mark gold chains were snatched from his neck by ban­dits in the heart of Port-of-Spain.

The first chain was tak­en from Aloes while walk­ing on Hen­ry Street a few months ago.

 The sec­ond rob­bery oc­curred on bustling Char­lotte Street.

“Af­ter every­thing set­tled down, I re­alised that I could have killed the guy. Now the po­lice wouldn’t want to hear that he took my gold chain. I would have had a mur­der charge on my head be­cause you could kill some­body in your house and the DPP could still charge you for mur­der un­der the cir­cum­stances, al­though you have the right to pro­tect your­self and your prop­er­ty.”

The ca­lyp­son­ian no longer wears flashy jew­el­ry in pub­lic or at home.

“Me ain’t so stu­pid. Why should I give them some­thing to come af­ter?”

Aloes blamed the abol­ish­ment of cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment in schools, stat­ing this has led to in­dis­ci­pline among the stu­dent pop­u­la­tion.

Chil­dren al­so lack God in their lives, he added.

“These are the things that are very rel­e­vant in our ex­is­tence. They ain’t know any­thing about God and prayers. That is the prob­lem. That is where it start­ed. One of our biggest mis­takes was re­mov­ing cor­po­ral pun­ish­ment from schools. We have lost this gen­er­a­tion.”

Dai­ly, Aloes said, he would see videos on so­cial me­dia of school girls fight­ing with their peers.

“You have to ask what sort of homes these chil­dren grow­ing up in to know so much vi­o­lence. We have to re­alise that some par­ents are chil­dren them­selves. An­oth­er thing is the young girls ... their eyes are long. They want a lot of things and the bad­der the man is more love they have for him. These chil­dren would see big peo­ple pass­ing and use pro­fan­i­ty,” he lament­ed.

Aloes said his chil­dren were taught to re­spect their el­ders and those in au­thor­i­ty.

 “In my home, they grew up pray­ing.”

Out-of-con­trol crime

Asked for his views on the coun­try’s es­ca­lat­ing crime, Aloes replied “It’s way out of con­trol.”

Last March, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher be­lieved that the coun­try was deal­ing with an un­nat­ur­al evil and that with­out di­vine in­ter­ven­tion her an­ti-crime strate­gies, in­clud­ing mur­ders, would be doomed to fail.

“You see this prayer Er­la called for, that ain’t work­ing. In the first few days of Jan­u­ary, there were mur­ders ga­lore. So the prayers are falling on deaf ears. It’s time for ac­tion,” he said

On­ly two of the coun­try’s for­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­ers have im­pressed Aloes–de­ceased Ran­dolph Bur­roughs and Gary Grif­fith.

“We were safe un­der them. Now nowhere is safe.”

Both men, he point­ed out, nev­er worked be­hind their desks but hunt­ed crim­i­nals and wrong­do­ers.

He plead­ed with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley to sit down with Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and deal with the crime sit­u­a­tion in the in­ter­est of the pop­u­la­tion.

“I think two heads are bet­ter than one. When you are in a sit­u­a­tion where it has be­come a re­al, re­al, prob­lem then you for­get Op­po­si­tion, you for­get Gov­ern­ment and you come to­geth­er on one com­mon ground to reach a com­mon un­der­stand­ing that would solve the prob­lem that is plagu­ing the coun­try.”

He said with the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion, the PNM could lose votes and ground in some con­stituen­cies be­cause of the law­less­ness in the coun­try.

“I am say­ing that you have to set aside your per­son­al agen­da, and you have to work with things that will work for you and not against you. There is noth­ing right now in the mak­ing that would give us any re­lief.”

The longer these talks take to ma­te­ri­alise, Aloes said, would take us to a point of no re­turn.

“It would be a recipe for dis­as­ter.”

Feels side­lined by PNM

Ca­lyp­son­ian Sug­ar Aloes feels side­lined by the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and has washed his hands of per­form­ing on the par­ty’s plat­form.

With the gen­er­al elec­tion due next year, Aloes said if he is in­vit­ed to sing for the par­ty dur­ing cam­paign­ing he would po­lite­ly de­cline.

Aloes said his days of singing on po­lit­i­cal plat­forms are over.

He has sung for the 68-year-old par­ty in many lo­cal and gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paigns.

“I wrap up with that be­cause peo­ple tend to think they own yuh. I have been rep­re­sent­ing the PNM all my ca­reer. What made me make the de­ci­sion is that I am look­ing at the peo­ple who they (PNM) hire to sing when­ev­er they have their cel­e­bra­tions or what­ev­er and I who rep­re­sent­ed them for all these times, they don’t re­mem­ber to call me.”

Re­call­ing how he open­ly sup­port­ed the par­ty for decades, he added,

“I wasn’t ashamed. I men­tioned and all I was a PNM which was my pre­rog­a­tive.”

Asked if he is still a PNM, Aloes replied, “To be hon­est, I doh even know what I is right now. The fact of the mat­ter it’s a par­ty I had grav­i­tat­ed to, and I still have a spe­cial place in my heart for them, es­pe­cial­ly when Mr Patrick Man­ning was there.”

He said Man­ning’s hum­ble­ness made him one of the coun­try’s best prime min­is­ters and some­one he deeply re­spect­ed and ad­mired.

“I watched him do a lot of things, but he had a pas­sion for the peo­ple.”

Aloes said when Man­ning was hound­ed out of Bal­isi­er House af­ter los­ing the 2010 gen­er­al elec­tion it hurt him to the core.

“You have to take cog­ni­sance of that. Look what they did to Man­ning, far more for me who nev­er do any­thing for them.”

In 2012, Aloes was crit­i­cised for ser­e­nad­ing then-prime min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on stage with Tar­rus Ri­ley’s song She’s Roy­al when the then Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment cel­e­brat­ed its sec­ond year in of­fice.

“Well pa­pa, they dragged me over the fire. Why I can’t take a job? Every­body else does sing for any­body.”

Al­though he has nev­er per­formed for the UNC dur­ing an elec­tion cam­paign, Aloes said whether peo­ple liked Per­sad-Bisses­sar or not she was our prime min­is­ter, and he re­spect­ed the po­si­tion she held.

“So I feel the most ap­pro­pri­ate song to sing was She’s Roy­al as far as I was con­cerned.”