Caribbean & Central America - December 2011 (ISSN 1741-4458)

On 23 November, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar announced that an assassination plot against her and three cabinet ministers had been uncovered two weeks earlier but that she was unable at this stage to provide full details because of the ongoing security operation.  In her initial statement, the prime minister emphasised that the plot proved that the government’s anti-crime drive was having an impact, seeming to confirm a security rather than a political purpose.  However, in Trinidad & Tobago crime is a political issue, and a racial one too, and it took no time at all for both politics and race to surface in the reactions to the plot.

In her 23 November statement on the assassination plot, the prime minister made an immediate link between the plot and the imposition of a state of emergency (SOE) almost exactly three months earlier. According to the prime minister, 7,269 people had been arrested since the SOE was imposed.  The police had also seized T&T1.5bn (US$236m) worth of drugs, including one seizure worth T&T$55m (US$8.6m). Over 13,000 runs of ammunition have been seized in the same time, along with 173 firearms.

According to Persad-Bissessar, the assassination plot was an attempt by “criminal elements” to carry out reprisals for the SOE.  She said: “Their actions have proven that the efforts of the government are having the desired effect.  We are flushing them out; we are making it almost impossible to operate as they would have in the past.”

But the prime minister was also quick to introduce a political element, saying that “these nefarious elements” had reacted in such a way because they were “finally confronted by a government which possesses the political will, courage, and strength of conviction to stoutly defend and protect the citizens of our country”.  She added: “For far too long these criminals have been allowed to flourish as the untouchables, some with their sinister connections of legitimacy.”

The People’s Party (PP) government, which is dominated by the prime minister’s Indo-Trinidadian oriented United National Congress (UNC), took power from the mainly Afro-Trinidadian People’s National Movement in May 2010.

In her statement, Persad-Bissessar also introduced an element of mystery by saying that the criminals had “the support from others whose names will…come to light in time”.  As of 28 November, 14 suspects had been arrested, including four ex-members of the security forces (three ex-soldiers and one former coastguard).

In our September report on crime in Trinidad & Tobago [RC-11-09], we looked at the degree to which race is at the heart of the issue.  It is estimated that there are 95 gangs in Trinidad & Tobago and that they are responsible for 60% of the country’s murders. Gang members are predominantly of African (76%) or Afro-Indian (19%) origins. Less than 5% of gang members describe themselves as being of East Indian origin. The position is further complicated by the fact that the police force (which solves only 20% of violent crimes) is predominantly an Afro-Trinidadian force.

The fact that the prime minister and the three other cabinet ministers targeted by the would-be assassins – Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, Housing Minister Dr Roodal Monilal, and Local Government Minister Chandresh Ramlogan – are all of East Indian origin has not gone unremarked.

A further potentially sinister aspect of the plot is the fact that members of an unnamed radical Muslim organization are said to have been involved.  In 1990, Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM), an extremist group supported mainly by Afro-Trinidadian converts to Islam, mounted an attempted takeover of the government under the leadership of Yasin Abu Bakr (formerly Lennox Phillips).  It portrays itself as the defender of all Afro-Trinidadians, even non-Muslims, and in 2005 it called on rich Muslims (ie Muslims of East Indian origins) to pay a percentage of income to charity or face “bloodshed and war”.  Over the years since the attempted coup, many of JAM’s members have been linked to gang-related crimes.  Other radical Islamic groups with an Afro-Trinidadian following include Waajihat-ul-Islamiyyah, Jamaat al-Murabiteen, and Jamaat al-Islami al-Karibi.