‘WE ARE BEING CAGED’

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior Re­porter

shal­iza.has­[email protected]

Hours af­ter the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill (SOB) passed in the Low­er House, a wave of con­cern swept through the com­mu­ni­ties of Beetham Gar­dens and Sea Lots, as res­i­dents said they now feel “caged” by the leg­is­la­tion.

Com­ing out of a re­cent­ly end­ed State of Emer­gency (SoE), dur­ing which some res­i­dents were de­tained un­der Pre­ven­tive De­ten­tion Or­ders with­out be­ing charged, these two com­mu­ni­ties in Port-of-Spain said the bill has height­ened their fears of an­oth­er form of con­fine­ment.

Shaquille Burke, the son of the late Sea Lots com­mu­ni­ty leader, Cedric “Burkie” Burke, said hav­ing emerged from an on­go­ing SoE, res­i­dents are now faced with a re­al­i­ty where the threat of be­ing men­tal­ly caged looms large.

Sur­round­ed by a group of men from the com­mu­ni­ty, Burke felt that the SOB would be far worse than the SoE.

“Be­cause you’re im­pris­on­ing the free world now. You not be­hind a cage again, but the cage is men­tal now,” he said.

“For re­al,” shout­ed one of the men who joined Burke and their Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land yes­ter­day to dis­cuss the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of bill.

“Ba­si­cal­ly, how we watch­ing, it is to keep a strain on us. They al­ready get rid of Cepep (Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme) and these things that used to help us earn a liv­ing. Now they are putting us in a cage. So it’s like, we’re not in jail again, but we’re in jail,” Burke said.

The leg­is­la­tion re­placed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­feat­ed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill, es­tab­lish­ing sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts across Trinidad and To­ba­go.

It cre­ates a frame­work for spe­cial op­er­a­tions to com­bat crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

With­in those dis­tricts, spe­cial lo­ca­tions can be de­clared “closed” ar­eas where en­hanced law en­force­ment pow­ers can be ex­er­cised for lim­it­ed pe­ri­ods.

Those pow­ers in­clude cur­fews, cor­dons, check­points, road clo­sures, re­stric­tions on en­try and ex­it and, in spec­i­fied cir­cum­stances, search­es with­out war­rants.

In­sist­ing that the bill was a “sprawl­ing as­sault” on cit­i­zens’ rights, Scot­land on Sat­ur­day promised to mo­bilise his con­stituents against the bill.

With the bill giv­ing po­lice sweep­ing pow­ers to lock down neigh­bour­hoods, the res­i­dents won­dered if they are tru­ly free.

Un­der the blis­ter­ing sun, the men met with Scot­land at the com­mu­ni­ty’s fish mar­ket to vent their feel­ings about the bill, which they are not in sup­port of.

Burke said the bill would re­strict their move­ment.

“A lot of youths in this com­mu­ni­ty, they need their free­dom be­cause that is how they make their liv­ing. Putting us on lock­down is like re­strict­ing us from liv­ing.”

Burke said this will on­ly ap­ply fur­ther pres­sure on them.

He said Sea Lots al­ready has a stig­ma which they have to live with.

In a state­ment via so­cial me­dia on Sat­ur­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar warned that she will not hes­i­tate to de­clare an­oth­er SoE de­spite the pas­sage of the SOB.

She said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) wants a crim­i­nal state so the West­moor­ings, Fed­er­a­tion Park, St Clair and oth­er gangs can flood com­mu­ni­ties with il­le­gal drugs and guns.

Asked how they felt about the PM’s warn­ing, Burke said, “I have no con­fi­dence in the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment right now. And to me that is the road we should take. Every­one come to­geth­er and (have) no con­fi­dence.”

Burke as­sured that Sea Lots is a com­mu­ni­ty of peace and one love.

“In or­der for the peace to con­tin­ue and ex­pand, they can’t lock us down. It’s not about hate. We are about love,” Burke in­sist­ed.

Scot­land in­ter­ject­ed say­ing that Sea Lots res­i­dents have been be­hav­ing.

“We are not here in any rah-rah busi­ness,” he said.

“This is not how you fix things. These are hon­est, hard-work­ing peo­ple. But just one stig­ma­ti­sa­tion alone could have this area de­clared a zone. And there we are.”

If Sea Lots is deemed a closed zone, Scot­land won­dered what would hap­pen to the young men who would need to ven­ture in and out of their com­mu­ni­ty.

Burke said through­out the world there are bad el­e­ments.

“That doh mean that every­body have to suf­fer for a few bad el­e­ments. That is not how you does fix things. To me, they know who are the crim­i­nals. Why would you put every­body un­der that shade? This com­mu­ni­ty has a lot of as­pir­ing peo­ple. Is not just crim­i­nals. And we ac­tu­al­ly moved so far away from that.”

He said Sea Lots has trans­formed from a “stig­ma­tised” crime-rid­dled com­mu­ni­ty to a zone of peace.

“We’ve had big changes. Peo­ple ac­tu­al­ly do­ing some­thing with their lives now.”

Burke said he ex­pects to be tar­get­ed for speak­ing out.

“Them bad boys and them will come af­ter us for speak­ing out. They will bul­ly us,” one of the men in­sist­ed.

Joel Lee, pres­i­dent of the Beetham Gar­dens Com­mu­ni­ty Coun­cil, said their com­mu­ni­ty have been free of mur­ders and shoot­ings.

“So this zone of op­er­a­tions that they are com­ing with to pick out cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties that they feel is hot spot... what is a hot spot com­mu­ni­ty?... be­cause we have crime go­ing on in Val­sayn... or­gan­ised crime they call it.”

Lee said crime has been hap­pen­ing all over the coun­try.

He felt they have stepped out of one form of con­tain­ment, such as the SoE, on­ly to walk in­to the SOB.

“We are be­ing caged. With the SoE and the bill, you are gov­ern­ing us down.”

Lee said Beetham Gar­dens has had a “bad stain” on its name for years.

But be­hind the bad im­age, their com­mu­ni­ty has pro­duced lawyers, en­gi­neers, teach­ers and doc­tors, mak­ing them proud.

He said they are stand­ing firm against the bill be­cause it would shut down busi­ness­es and dis­rupt sales.

“All the lit­tle food out­lets and en­tre­pre­neurs would have to close their busi­ness­es at 6 pm. I am a work­ing guy. So I would have to ask for a per­mit to go to work and a pass to come back in. So that will slow me down and slow down the com­mu­ni­ty.”

Like Burke, Lee said the SOB would be far more dras­tic than the SoE.

“It’s go­ing to be worse be­cause of the pow­ers they will give the po­lice.”

Al­ready, Lee said some po­lice of­fi­cers can’t con­tain their ag­gres­sion or speak to civil­ians prop­er­ly.

Lee said what is need­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty are pro­grammes, as un­em­ploy­ment has been in­creas­ing among sin­gle par­ents.

“We are just ask­ing the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties to think it over. I am ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, please let us think be­fore we act. Let us take we time and analyse what is go­ing on. We know it have crime in the coun­try. But not every­one in the coun­try is a crim­i­nal. What’s good for the low­er-class is good for the up­per-class.”

Beetham Gar­dens res­i­dent Ge­nile Dy­er al­so be­lieves the SOB was passed to tar­get cer­tain com­mu­ni­ties.

“We know that is the in­tent. If you want to im­ple­ment this bill, it has to go across the board... ghet­to com­mu­ni­ties... up­scale com­mu­ni­ties. Every­body is sup­posed to get it. Don’t re­strict one set of peo­ple and one en­vi­ron­ment. Re­strict every­body and done, if is so you want to do it. What you feel good for the low­er class, good for the up­per class too.”