Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The To­ba­go Civil­NET group, which was sup­port­ed by late na­tion builder Regi­nald Du­mas, saw a vi­o­lent crime wave ap­proach­ing To­ba­go since Feb­ru­ary, and the group is now or­gan­is­ing a sem­i­nar in­volv­ing both US and T&T ex­perts on gang vi­o­lence and youth lead­er­ship to seek so­lu­tions.

Rod­ney Pig­gott, the head of To­ba­go Civil­NET, an­nounced this yes­ter­day.

Pig­gott said the To­ba­go-based non-po­lit­i­cal think tank was among Du­mas’s un­der­tak­ings when he was alive, and it was part of his lega­cy. Du­mas died in March.

Pig­gott, who re­turned from a ca­reer in the US to live in T&T, said the group has been work­ing on is­sues since 2017 but be­came ful­ly ac­tive in 2021.

Pig­gott said, “To­ba­go Civil­NET joins civ­il so­ci­ety in de­cry­ing the rise of vi­o­lent crimes in the na­tion, es­pe­cial­ly in the his­tor­i­cal­ly peace­ful so­cial en­vi­ron­ment of To­ba­go. Civil­NET views these vi­o­lent crimes as an at­tack against the so­cial in­fra­struc­ture launched most­ly by a mi­nor­i­ty who trav­el the ‘fast street-life’ lane des­ig­nat­ed for in­stant grat­i­fi­ca­tion of il­lic­it ma­te­r­i­al gains.

“We know that most To­bag­o­ni­ans are de­cent peo­ple striv­ing for de­cent and hon­est lives. We ap­plaud all those in our com­mu­ni­ties that re­sist the pull of the easy mon­ey and il­le­gal, im­moral ac­tiv­i­ties. To­geth­er, we To­bag­o­ni­ans, with the help of our part­ners, can solve this crime prob­lem.”

He added, “We saw this vi­o­lent crime wave ap­proach­ing in Feb­ru­ary 2024 and have been work­ing to spark is­land-wide dis­cus­sion on the is­sue and ways to solve it by bring­ing ex­perts to To­ba­go to guide us in ex­am­i­na­tion of the so­lu­tions to the crime us­ing a pub­lic health ap­proach.”

Pig­got said the group has de­vel­oped this in the form of a sem­i­nar de­signed to in­clude all of so­ci­ety and has al­ready en­gaged world-renowned ex­perts, in­clud­ing Pro­fes­sor Emer­i­tus Dr Ul­ric John­son of Boston and Dr Wen­dell C Wal­lace of the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine.

“Dr John­son is an in­ter­na­tion­al pre­sen­ter and train­er on Gang Vi­o­lence Pre­ven­tion and Youth Lead­er­ship De­vel­op­ment, and Dr Wal­lace is a crim­i­nol­o­gist and se­nior lec­tur­er whose re­search fo­cus­es on polic­ing, vi­o­lence (do­mes­tic and school), is­sues in high­er ed­u­ca­tion, and gangs.

“Both of these pro­fes­sion­als have for­mal­ly agreed to bring their ex­pert-lev­el knowl­edge to To­ba­go and as­sist ‘all of so­ci­ety’ in forg­ing a bul­wark with­in the so­cial in­fra­struc­ture against the bur­geon­ing vi­o­lent crimes that have now claimed 16 lives here,” he added.

“Civil­NET re­mains res­olute that an all-of-so­ci­ety ap­proach must be mean­ing­ful­ly en­gaged as a step to achiev­ing last­ing so­lu­tions to the im­pe­tus that dri­ves the few amongst us to a life of crime,” he said, adding the group was wel­com­ing spon­sors open to as­sist­ing the sem­i­nar.