Please Mr Ombudsman
Please Mr Ombudsman, help us.
This form of government is no longer working. It is destroying the country and all that may be possible in a little island with so much potential.
This parliament needs to be dissolved and an interim govt placed in to decide on the new constitution that will more reflect the immortal words “ every creed and race will find an equal place”.
Doing this is the only peaceful alternative to continued fighting over turf, like dogs, to the detriment of a whole nation, and two islands.
Thank you
Conspiracy theory
Conspiracy theory?It was after a sweat, the other day when I first tried to tell some old friends that I thought the oil companies and George Bush were behind the political instability and “crime wave” occurring in Trinidad and Tobago. I say crime wave because that is how the media is portraying it. It is as much a result of an education system gone horribly wrong coupled by poor moral choices by government after government as much the leader of the free world trying to secure this profitable little bit of paradise and drive a wedge between Chavez and Castro.
Manning even looks like Bush nowadays, or it must be the similar expressions of dumbness when asked anything that really matters, and the looks of numb sincerity when preaching to their loyal subjects. Have the powerful combined American Army/ Intelligence, indeed the world security forces, found Bin Laden, enemy of the United States? Why has nothing been done about Abu Bakr, leader of an attempted coup, whose name is on everyone’s list as to be the man in charge of the organisation that has been doing the kidnapping, with the duplicity or stupidity of the police and bank contacts.
Did you know no plane ever hit the pentagon on Sept. 11th? If you don’t believe me check out
http://www.cosmicpenguin.com/911/bradm/911index/index.html.
(I had seen a similar site a year or two ago and thought nothing of it.) . Basically there are photos of the pentagon before and after the supposed plane hit, and during the fire fighting and clear up effort. On some of the pictures they have got superimposed diagrams of a plane the actual size of the one that was supposed to have hit the pentagon. You can see that if a plane had hit it would have caused a helluva lot more damage, not a 12 foot hole. Even the part of the building that eventually collapsed was no where near the size of a plane like that, that carries fuel in its wings. There was also no plane parts scattered about, none. You could have played golf on the pentagon lawn that day. Check it out for yourself and let me know.
My question then was, if a plane didn’t hit the pentagon, what did? Did a plane hit the first tower? Was it really a plane full of people that hit the second tower? Could it not have been a remote control? The U.S. has had remote control planes taking pictures of foreign lands for decades, everybody knows this, I saw it on the History channel, Machines of Modern War. Independent researchers have actually found out that there are discrepancies with the official story /released records of events and the events that can be proven/original records of the events. Do the research, decide for yourself.
What I am saying is, 911 happened, the US did Afghanistan to find Al Qaeda and Bin Laden.
Did They? They said Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.
Did they find any? All they found was oil, damn, now we have to help them get it out! We are in a similar position in Trinidad as we have so-called Islamic Fundamentalists in our midst, all we have to do is call on Mr Bush and he’ll get rid of him for us.
But will he? How much of our oil/gas is sold to the U.S.?
If Abu Bakr was a real Islamic fundamentalist he would have been declaring jihad, sending his muhajideen to Allah by way of a strap on bomb in Petrotrin refinery, or Clico’s Methanol plants or a big maxi to San Juan. Why has he chosen the way of the highwayman, kidnapping and robbery for profit. Why can’t or won’t the government put a stop to it? Or at least tell us why he is doing it.
I can tell you what it is doing. The population has dropped by 300000 in the last two years. Anyone who can afford to leave is leaving. It has gotten too much to bear for them. Someone is making sure that by the next election there will be no one left to vote anything but PNM.
We need to change our constitution and political system to one that will better reflect the diversity in our culture as in our anthem “ every creed and race will find an equal place” rather than one which espouses one party rule, one party will prevail. At the end of the day if you ask the question, “Who would want Indian people in Trinidad scared and running?” The answer is a black prime minister of a black party that rely on poor black votes.
Me the Police?
If I were in charge of the police in our country for a day.- Hope to meet all the officers to make sure every one of them was willing to die for their country and the principles it stands for, serving all? I would tell them to not resist change, but accept it, I would tell them to follow the letter of the law, let the judiciary interpret that law.
- I would make sure every police station was computerised and linked to a central hub or secure web server. Reports would then be made at the police station where a copy would be stored electronically (Primary reporting), and another copy at the central hub where files would be backed up. (storage and assimilation).
- The technology is available now to allow for real time police processing where a suspect can be fingerprinted onto a laptop and uploaded, and in a few seconds the arresting officer will know if the suspect has any prior arrests or is wanted for any violation. In the same way a vehicle registration number can be processed if it has been reported stolen or if its owner is wanted the system will automatically ‘flag’ to let the enquiring officer know if to continue enquiring or call for back up.
- Fit Global Positioning Systems in all police service vehicles so that all vehicles and the officers that are in them can be accounted for and located in real time. This will assist in resource allocation to ongoing and emergency situations as well as a check to see how vehicles are being used.
- I would institute results based (on convictions) bonuses .
- For convictions on human crimes, murder, rape, kidnapping, violence, rascism, negligent or dangerous driving the highest level of bonuses.
- For convictions of illegal activities and crimes involving large dollar sums divide a percentage of the seized assets among the arresting and investigating officers.
- Utilize mobile phone technology to
- Maintain constant contact with on-duty personnel.
- Enable on-scene multimedia reporting to central database by text or data stream.(preliminary report)
- Mobilize off-duty personnel in case of emergency
- Make their working environment as condusive as possible :
- New uniforms, I figure white shirts with white, blue or black ballistic vests, blue or khaki shorts, police extendable baton etc.
- As much new police stations as possible, with the designs being as functional and comfortable for the human beings living and working there.
- Make corruption within the service a crime like treason, punishable by flogging and/or life imprisonment.
- Have a budget to pay informants. In crime detection information is key, and not readily given out to police officers .If the information can lead to arrest and conviction then it will be worth paying for.
- Form a Communications and public enquiries department
- To communicate with the public honestly, faily and in their best interests.
- Who will be responsible for presenting the police service in the best light .
- And investigating complaints of officers conduct while on duty.
- Rehabilitations department
- That will be the main liaisons between the Police service and the Prison service.
- That will be responsible for vagrancy, resettling criminals who have served their time and the young offenders who need to be re-integrated with society with positive attitudes and skills for their future.
- This will include parole officers as well as the electronic tagging department for individuals under house arrest and curfew.
- Send all serving personnel (and new recruits too) to England to sharpen their skills in policing in a multi-cultural society, and only when they have passed that training successfully they get the new uniform.
the solution(in short)
I think i just found the solution to end poverty in trinidad. Give everybody highspeed broadband, develop an online education system, and then pay people if they complete a course. If someone is unemployed, they can earn money by going to school, if someone is employed they can learn more and still earn more. Farmers will be able to educate their chidren at home while selling their produce over the same medium. Now parents will be able to say
learn with full force and mean it.
I envisage a curriculum where children can literally learn about anything they wanted to ( in addition to the core three R's of course) at home under the supervision of their parents while earning money towards mortgage, or tax credits. Gone would be the days of cramming and stressfull life- determining exams, at least till university anyhow. Children would have more time to be childern and parents would not have to worry about supporting them because once they are learning they are supporting themselves.
Parents who don't work and have no education can earn money doing courses towards higher literacy levels and then on to higher education or vocational /technical courses all the time earning for their families.
I think that if you want a knowledge based society this is the way to go , and if you don't want people to be poor, then this is the way to go , unfortunately in Trinidad and Tobago, much like a lot of places, there are vested interests into keeping people poor.
There will be a department of teaching that will teach people the internet, and how to use it and the applications necessary. Once people become familiar with the basics they should explore exponentially, especially if they earn money while doing it. These teachers will also act as social workers, gathering information about the households’ ability to provide the child with a sound educational framework. There will still be teachers in schools of course, teaching the children who can get to school and whose parents deem school the best place to be for children, but let me say I think there should be a lot more structured sport and recreational activities in schools in Trinidad and Tobago, at least four half days a week. There would be two half days sport, one half day music (pan)/ arts , and the other half day should be a visit to a factory, government building, or something relevant to current curriculum.
In order to buffer the current stock of teachers, we will need to lure the many of our countrymen and women tempted by higher salaries over seas with pay of that level and tax breaks. All teachers should be evaluated on a regular basis and rotated for overseas training once a year, if possible. Teachers as well will be able to study on the internet and be paid for their time and increased qualifications. We should also tempt English speaking (as well as those for whom English is their second or third language) nationals of other countries with our pay packet. Trust me , there’s always lots of people willing to live in a politically stable tropical paradise.
So you’re probably wondering how much all of this is going to cost? Assuming the cost of a brand new computer is $4000 tt, and we equip everybody in Trinidad and Tobago with one it will cost the government a whopping $4 billion tt.
Current computer stats on www.internetworldstats.com indicate that only 138000 people or 10.5% of the population is currently on the internet. It would seem then that we need to supply 850000 computers. A Niherst survery in june 2001, found that ‘Households with a grosss monthly income of $6000-$7900 had the largest proportion of home computers, followed by 15.4% of households with incomes of $4000-$5900. only 5.1% of households with monthly incomes of less than $2000 had computers.’
To add to this, according to the CSO’s summary characteristics of households by income group of households we can determine that 50.83% of households in Trinidad and Tobago live on under $4000 per month and each of these households contain an average of 3.72 persons. Therefore to supply computers to those who need them the most we will need to provide 161300 computers i.e. 600000 persons divided by the average per household. Round this upwards to 180000 computers and we get a computer supply cost of $720 million.
Now remember, these are the 600000 neediest people in the country, who will now have a way to earn money for their families by being at home and doing courses on the home computer. Will people do the courses? Will they let the children do the courses? I hope families could even do courses together, I can see a child of 12 in front of the computer with his father who never passed common entrance learning basic English, or geography, or science. Especially as the fact is that when they are both doing courses they are both contributing to the household income.
When's the bombing going to start?
I'ts just a matter of time before things start to get blown up in Trinidad. It's only the next logical step. Just like Zimbabwe and Rwanda it starts with power hungry politicians and two distinct racial groups. It continues with the intimidation of the press(Trinidad claims free press but the economics of the situation and the low quality of reporting shades the truth), and acts of violence aimed at one race in particular. The question being how long will it take for the persecuted race to respond?
In the first half of this year 71 people were kidnapped with the vast majority of them being of East Indian descent. Many claim that it was the police that abducted them in the first place. Some have said they heard their abductors talking to people who knew their exact bank account balance. Kidnap victims have been having to deal with known gangsters in order to get thier loved ones back. Some of the victims have been treated well, some have been tortured, beaten, kept in a hole in the ground covered with a sheet of galvanised metal in 30% plus weather.
In the Wednesday June 1st, Trinidad Gurdian, Kidnap Snapshot it seems to me that 45 of the 71 kidnap victims paid. Millions. Seemingly its making these kidnappers rich, or at least in the money. I would've thought in 2005 there would be some way of tracing large amounts of cash, or even not so large amounts. I mean, they just can't go sticking it in the bank can they? The other thing is its an amazingly high strike rate 45 paid out of 71 kidnaps (63%) , while the police have rescued one (1) victim a success rate of 1.4%.
The worst thing that can happen to someone is to end up in a war and not be able to defend themselves and their loved ones and in Trinidad its just that. The government will not license responsible people to carry firearms, but there are little bad boys in the Beetham who can't spell Remington or count the fourteen in the clip, but kill without hesitation, or remorse. The only way to defend yourself from that kind of random violence without weapons, is education and an agressive, enforcible anti-gun stance. (likeP.M.Manning's gonna do that!)
So you have a country where half of its population( the better educated, richer half) is living in fear. Sooner or later these people are going to wake up and say " i'm not taking this anymore", and I think that has already started to happen.
The government has just put the opposition party leader in jail, albeit deservedly, but at a time when it was guaranteed to distract from opposition charges of the same centered around Franklin Khan, Eric Williams and Dr Keith Rowley.
International observers (U.N.), are needed here urgently, we need contitutional experts to assist us to change our constitution and we must demand that before the next election. We need to put in place a government truly representative of the all the population, dedicated to the good of all thel people and the land in which we live.
We have to work together in this aim for now and for our future.
