Opposition Senator says Angelo case has cast ‘heavy cloud’ over Tobago

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Melanie Roberts-Radg­man has ex­pressed sad­ness over the dis­ap­pear­ance of two-year-old An­ge­lo To­bias-Plaza, say­ing the in­ci­dent has cast a heavy cloud over To­ba­go and sparked broad­er con­cerns about the safe­ty and pro­tec­tion of chil­dren.

A sev­enth sus­pect was held in con­nec­tion with the dis­ap­pear­ance of An­ge­lo. Ac­cord­ing to po­lice, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is now at a sen­si­tive stage.

The child’s moth­er, Kali­fah To­bias, 22, and her boyfriend, Shan­non Miller, 25, re­main in po­lice cus­tody af­ter be­ing de­tained on Fri­day af­ter­noon.

Po­lice con­firmed both have been held at sep­a­rate po­lice sta­tions for ques­tion­ing.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Roberts-Radg­man, who is from To­ba­go, said the is­land has been gripped by anx­i­ety and heart­break since news emerged last week that the tod­dler had gone miss­ing.

She said To­ba­go’s re­sponse re­flect­ed the deep con­cern felt across com­mu­ni­ties, with res­i­dents mo­bil­is­ing to search, pray and hold vig­ils in the hope of find­ing the child safe­ly.

“It’s been all of To­ba­go hold­ing its breath,” she said, not­ing that as time has passed, the at­mos­phere has grown in­creas­ing­ly som­bre.

Roberts-Radg­man de­scribed the un­fold­ing sit­u­a­tion as heart­break­ing, say­ing every new de­vel­op­ment has deep­ened the sad­ness felt across the is­land.

“This has hung a heavy cloud over To­ba­go. It’s the on­ly thing peo­ple are con­cerned about right now,” she said.

She said the case has res­onat­ed well be­yond To­ba­go, touch­ing peo­ple through­out Trinidad and rais­ing ur­gent ques­tions about child wel­fare.

She said the in­ci­dent points to a broad­er na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion that must take place about how chil­dren are pro­tect­ed and how rel­a­tives, neigh­bours and com­mu­ni­ties re­spond when signs emerge that a child may be in dan­ger.

How­ev­er, she stressed that the im­me­di­ate pri­or­i­ty re­mains find­ing an­swers sur­round­ing An­ge­lo’s dis­ap­pear­ance.

Roberts-Radg­man al­so ad­dressed the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the re­cent en­vi­ron­men­tal ap­proval grant­ed to Su­pe­ri­or Ho­tels Ltd for a ma­jor tourism de­vel­op­ment at Rocky Point.

The En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Au­thor­i­ty (EMA) re­cent­ly grant­ed a Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance for the pro­posed $500 mil­lion, 200-room de­vel­op­ment, which in­cludes bun­ga­lows, vil­las and pri­vate res­i­dences across near­ly 12 hectares.

The project is ex­pect­ed to cre­ate hun­dreds of jobs dur­ing con­struc­tion and add a 3.5-star re­sort to To­ba­go’s tourism prod­uct.

How­ev­er, the ap­proval has drawn crit­i­cism from Rocky Point Foun­da­tion founder Du­ane Ken­ny, who said he was dis­ap­point­ed by the de­ci­sion af­ter years of ad­vo­ca­cy to pro­tect what the group con­sid­ers an en­vi­ron­men­tal­ly sen­si­tive area.

Re­spond­ing to the is­sue, Roberts-Radg­man said while To­ba­go wel­comes de­vel­op­ment and recog­nis­es the im­por­tance of ex­pand­ing its tourism sec­tor, en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion must re­main a pri­or­i­ty.

She called for fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion among stake­hold­ers, in­clud­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly, en­vi­ron­men­tal au­thor­i­ties and com­mu­ni­ty groups, to en­sure con­cerns are prop­er­ly heard and ad­dressed.

“We do want de­vel­op­ment, and we care about tourism, but we al­so care about pre­serv­ing our en­vi­ron­ment and our nat­ur­al re­sources,” she said.

Roberts-Radg­man said the con­cerns raised are le­git­i­mate and ex­pressed hope that mean­ing­ful di­a­logue will take place be­fore the project moves for­ward, en­sur­ing any en­vi­ron­men­tal risks are ful­ly con­sid­ered and mit­i­gat­ed.