Bethel residents: Special operations could mean victimisation, lower sales

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Bethel res­i­dents and busi­ness own­ers are not pleased with To­ba­go’s in­clu­sion in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, which was re­cent­ly passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

They ar­gue their liveli­hoods could be threat­ened, as the eco­nom­ic fall­out caused by pos­si­ble cur­fews and heavy po­lice pres­ence would be dis­as­trous.

The bill iden­ti­fies To­ba­go among sev­en dis­tricts, with each man­aged by a se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer.

Au­thor­i­ties can des­ig­nate com­mu­ni­ties with­in any dis­trict as “closed ar­eas” with cur­fews, war­rant­less search­es and per­mits to tran­sit among the strin­gent mea­sures.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sat­ur­day, Cyn­thia Stephen, a su­per­mar­ket own­er near the Bethel junc­tion, said the area was known in the past for vi­o­lent clash­es. How­ev­er, she said the area has not seen such al­ter­ca­tions for a long while.

“This area right now is not a bad area. Long time, them fel­las fight­ing and all of that — but that done. We get uni­ty around here these days,” she said.

Stephen said there was no need for po­lice spe­cial op­er­a­tions as it would on­ly hin­der com­mer­cial ac­tiv­i­ty.

“If they on­ly have po­lice around here, my busi­ness wouldn’t go nowhere. It’s the same fel­las who lime on the road I does get my sales from. I wouldn’t like to see that hap­pen.

“It would be worse than (the State of Emer­gency) be­cause it go be every minute you would be see­ing po­lice, and as long as po­lice com­ing here every minute the road go be dead, and it will af­fect us who do­ing a lit­tle busi­ness.”

How­ev­er, she said she has com­plete faith in law en­force­ment and hopes they con­tin­ue to make their reg­u­lar pa­trols.

An­oth­er res­i­dent, who wished to be iden­ti­fied sole­ly as Ju­nior, said he wel­comed the ini­tia­tive, but warned po­lice vic­tim­i­sa­tion is a pos­si­bil­i­ty.

“Is the man in the low class does feel the pres­sure,” he said.

“Let them come out and do what they have to do. In them kin­da things, some un­just things does be hap­pen­ing. Yuh does get that, it’s re­al­i­ty we deal­ing with.”

Res­i­dent Leslie Al­fred said po­lice have done an ex­cel­lent job main­tain­ing law and or­der in the area, and is con­fi­dent they will con­tin­ue.

“For the last few months is low crime rate and vi­o­lence, not on­ly in Bethel but in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

Area rep­re­sen­ta­tive Dar­ren Hen­ry said Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice da­ta would in­form which ar­eas need to be des­ig­nat­ed as closed. How­ev­er, he be­lieves most mem­bers of the pub­lic feel more com­fort­able with an ad­di­tion­al po­lice pres­ence in their vicin­i­ty.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing an im­prove­ment in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill com­pared to the pre­vi­ous Zone of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill, In­no­v­a­tive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Al­liance (IDA) leader Dr Denise Tsoiafatt An­gus said it still does not suf­fi­cient­ly ad­dress the con­se­quences to To­ba­go’s tourism sec­tor. She said ho­tels and guests would be se­vere­ly in­con­ve­nienced if it falls near or in a closed area.

Asked if she agreed with To­ba­go West MP Joel Samp­son that Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine should be con­sult­ed pri­or to any com­mu­ni­ty in To­ba­go be­ing de­clared closed, the IDA head said there should have been con­ver­sa­tions even be­fore the is­land was in­clud­ed in the bill.