‘Silence is unacceptable’

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says To­bag­o­ni­ans are “damn vex” over the “Nan­cy sto­ries be­ing ped­dled” in the dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza.

It has been a week since the tod­dler was re­port­ed miss­ing from his sea­side home at Cam­bridge Trace, Good­wood.

His moth­er Kali­fah To­bias and her boyfriend Shan­non Miller re­mained in po­lice cus­tody last night as po­lice sought an­swers in the tod­dler’s dis­ap­pear­ance.

Dur­ing post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil me­dia brief­ing on Thurs­day, Au­gus­tine said there were more ques­tions than an­swers in the in­ci­dent.

How­ev­er, in a Face­book post yes­ter­day, the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty leader was more vo­cif­er­ous, say­ing he could no longer be diplo­mat­ic amid the un­set­tling sit­u­a­tion.

Ex­plain­ing that he could not sleep peace­ful­ly on Sat­ur­day night as An­ge­lo was on his mind, Au­gus­tine said, “Every moth­er, every fa­ther, every grand­par­ent, and every de­cent cit­i­zen feels the weight of this tragedy.”

He said the pub­lic is de­mand­ing ac­count­abil­i­ty in the mat­ter, as “some­thing does not sit right with the na­tion­al con­science.”

“The pub­lic out­rage and heart­break now be­ing ex­pressed across To­ba­go and Trinidad are jus­ti­fied. We have a right to be damn vex about how this is un­fold­ing and the Nan­cy sto­ries that are be­ing ped­dled.”

The dis­ap­pear­ance has sparked a mul­ti-agency re­sponse span­ning land and sea.

How­ev­er, An­ge­lo’s moth­er does not be­lieve her son drowned, say­ing he was afraid of the dark and the sea.

Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day al­so said he found it hard to be­lieve a two-year-old would walk in the pitch-black night, through a ditch and ob­sta­cles in­to the ocean. A dirt track cov­ered with fall­en leaves, pro­trud­ing roots and branch­es sep­a­rate An­ge­lo’s home from the At­lantic Ocean.

Au­gus­tine said the mat­ter must be treat­ed with the high­est lev­el of ur­gency, se­ri­ous­ness and in­ves­tiga­tive in­ten­si­ty.

“Every lead must be pur­sued. Every in­con­sis­ten­cy must be ex­am­ined. Every per­son with in­for­ma­tion must co­op­er­ate ful­ly with au­thor­i­ties,” he urged.

He added that any neg­li­gence or wrong­do­ing must be ex­posed and pros­e­cut­ed, while warn­ing that peo­ple with­hold­ing in­for­ma­tion in a case in­volv­ing a child should un­der­stand that “si­lence ... is un­ac­cept­able.”

Au­gus­tine al­so said the tragedy should force so­ci­ety to re­flect on its re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect chil­dren.

“The pro­tec­tion of chil­dren is not op­tion­al. It is a sa­cred re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” he said.

He end­ed by say­ing To­ba­go stood with An­ge­lo, the peo­ple of Good­wood and all cit­i­zens de­mand­ing an­swers.

“A na­tion is judged by how it pro­tects its most vul­ner­a­ble. There can be no peace, no com­fort and no clo­sure un­til an­swers are found,” Au­gus­tine said.

Au­gus­tine echoed sen­ti­ments ex­pressed by Good­wood Vil­lage Coun­cil pres­i­dent Wendy Des Vi­gnes that if wrong­do­ing is found, charges should be brought.

The search for An­ge­lo shift­ed to the Stud­ley Park land­fill yes­ter­day, based on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived by the po­lice.

The two Hunters’ Search and Res­cue Teams searched the dump along­side po­lice, the To­ba­go Emer­gency Man­age­ment Agency and oth­er agen­cies from around 10 am but it was un­suc­cess­ful.

A vil­lager pass­ing by with his fam­i­ly yes­ter­day stopped his car up­on notic­ing the height­ened ac­tiv­i­ty.

He told Guardian Me­dia, “That child could have been my grand­child, he could have been my child, he could have been every­thing. It re­al sad and it re­al crazy,” he said.

He said he was left speech­less up­on hear­ing the news of the miss­ing child.

“I could not be­lieve it,” he said.

He urged the au­thor­i­ties to search non-stop un­til An­ge­lo is found.

Mean­while, Good­wood vil­lagers held a can­dle­light vig­il last night pray­ing for An­ge­lo’s re­turn and for jus­tice to be served. Play­ing gospel mu­sic from a speak­er, the vil­lagers in­voked di­vine in­ter­ven­tion to guide po­lice to find An­ge­lo, wher­ev­er he is.

Des Vi­gnes told Guardian Me­dia they want to send a mes­sage to the na­tion that they care about chil­dren.