Augustine: “Something not right” in Angelo disappearance

Far­ley Au­gus­tine has called for ac­count­abil­i­ty and a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza, who was re­port­ed miss­ing on Mon­day last week, say­ing To­ba­go is “hurt­ing” as the child re­mains miss­ing.

In a so­cial me­dia post, Au­gus­tine said he had been strug­gling “to be diplo­mat­ic” fol­low­ing pub­lic com­ments he made on Thurs­day, adding that the case had shak­en To­ba­go “to its core.”

“The dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza of Good­wood has shak­en this is­land to its core. Every moth­er, every fa­ther, every grand­par­ent and every de­cent cit­i­zen feels the weight of this tragedy,” Au­gus­tine wrote.

He thanked mem­bers of the Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices, emer­gency re­spon­ders, vol­un­teers, vil­lagers, fish­er­men, hunters and oth­er cit­i­zens who have joined the search ef­fort on land and at sea.

How­ev­er, Au­gus­tine said too many ques­tions re­mained unan­swered and de­fend­ed the pub­lic anger sur­round­ing the mat­ter.

“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,” he wrote.

Au­gus­tine said the cir­cum­stances sur­round­ing the child’s dis­ap­pear­ance did not “sit right with the na­tion­al con­science,” adding that To­ba­go was not pre­pared to “nor­mal­ize the dis­ap­pear­ance of chil­dren.”

He called on the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice, the Homi­cide Bu­reau, the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit and oth­er na­tion­al agen­cies to in­ten­si­fy the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Every lead must be pur­sued. Every in­con­sis­ten­cy must be ex­am­ined. Every per­son with in­for­ma­tion must co­op­er­ate ful­ly with the au­thor­i­ties,” Au­gus­tine said.

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 wrote.

He end­ed the state­ment 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 wrote.