In a clearly developing trend, scores of Trinidadians have taken to the streets across the country this week to highlight various issues affecting their communities through fiery protests.
Infrastructure complaints, in most cases water and road woes, remain the major issues. However, there have also been protests over police brutality and extrajudicial killings of citizens. We can go back a few weeks to one sparked by the killing of three young men on Independence Square, Port-of-Spain, which resulted in major disruptions to activity in the capital, or to Monday along the North Coast Road in the wake of the police killing of La Fillette resident Meshach Gibson.
For all intents and purposes, the national security resources deployed to deal with these incidents — T&T Police Service, Defence Force and T&T Fire Service —, seem content to allow protesters leeway to conduct their activities and merely respond by way of clearing the debris and ensuring there is no repeat by maintaining a presence at the sites.
The TTPS has reported, in a few of the latest incidents, arrests of suspects but they all seem to have been released without charge thereafter. At best, therefore, it would seem these arrests are aimed more at removing the main protagonists from the protests in the hope others will desist.
We note that according to the Riot Act, any individual engaged in unlawful assembly or rioting can face fines and jail terms ranging from as little as $2,000 and one-year imprisonment to as much as $8,000 and two years imprisonment.
Protests, of course, are not new to the society. T&T has had a long history of citizens expressing themselves via protests dating back to the trade union days of citizens like Uriah Buzz Butler and Adrian Cola Rienzi, who led workers in hunger marches and the more famous Labour Riots of the 1930s, and of, course, the 1970s March to Caroni and Black Power Revolution, led by the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) under Makandal Daaga, trade unions and social groups, who united to voice concern over the leadership of the then People’s National Movement.
A feature of these historic riots, however, was that they were well organised, featured major sectors of society, did not disrupt other activities and save when the police stoked a fire, were peaceful for the most part.
Unfortunately, today’s protests have shifted in intensity with the element of burning debris for extra emphasis, which is what has been causing concern in some quarters.
Of course, these same individuals can also choose to organise themselves to protest outside the offices of their governmental representatives, sitting MPs or ministers or, in the case of police brutality or killing, outside the TTPS headquarters or divisional offices, and even seek police permission to do so.
We suppose not every protest can be this organised, they often being spontaneous at times. It is notable that such activities also have the effect of creating such a nuisance to other sectors of society that their conduct loses the impact desired.
Still, there is simply a better way to conduct such activity without taking away from the intensity of statements they are seeking to make. As such, we implore such individuals to consider the full ramifications of their actions in future before they put others in harm’s way.