Saturday, September 19 2009

That 15 persons can be killed in just four days — most by gunfire — is a shocking and dangerous blot upon our society. But worse than this is the ongoing silence of the Government, especially given that these murders occurred while the 2010 Budget Debate was in progress. As she read the Budget presentation in the House, Finance Minister Karen Nunez-Tesheira blithely parroted the same message we have been getting for the past nine years regarding violent crime. “Acknowledging” that the current level of lawlessness was “unacceptable,”she went on to declare: “We will not waiver from our zero-tolerance posture towards criminal activity: from the white-collar criminal to the drug trafficker, the message to the criminals is simple: you will be found and brought to justice, and you will feel the full brunt of the law.”

And the members of the Government benches thumped their desks proudly in support of these brave words!



And as if to mock this Government’s impotence, the criminals responded by unleashing a series of murders unprecedented in our history! The Government appears to have been shocked into silence. While members of the Opposition have voiced concerns about the increasing wave of crime, those on the Government side, those who thumped their desks at Minister Nunez-Tesheira’s “grandcharge” threats, have remained silent. Is this finally their admittance of failure, of surrender?



Following the massacre in the Curepe nightclub last weekend, one investigator said that preliminary investigations showed the gunmen went for James (the first person killed) and added the four others killed…. were “just collateral damage.”



“Just collateral damage”? Those words again! First enunciated as policy by the Prime Minister when an innocent woman was killed outside Movietowne in an alleged Muslimeen hit targeting her boyfriend, these words have become the dismissal procedure for gangland killings gone awry.



So, in the face of the ongoing silence from the Government regarding this defiant upsurge in crime, effectively spitting in the face of the ongoing commitments to zero tolerance, working assiduously, and the like, what can we assume about Government’s ability to deliver us from this crime wave?



First, we can look at the details emerging from the police killings of two men whom the police claim were the killers in the Curepe massacre. No doubt we will hear that this was an example of outstanding police work, and indeed, if these were the men involved, and we are not disputing this, then the police need commendation. However, we are more interested in the men shot, and their backgrounds as given by the police. The one identified to date, is described as a “Community Leader” (what else?), has been at Community Leader Meetings over the past few years. It was claimed he had criticised the Government for not doing enough for the communities. He was a suspect in “several” killings. It is not stated whether he was part of the infamous Breakfast and Lunch meetings with the Prime Minister.



This Government needs to explain its current surrender into silence. The messages it has sent in the past, and up to last Monday, have been ludicrous grandcharge.



A formula for crime must be implemented.