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Speaker: The Honourable Basdeo Panday, Prime Minister of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
Date: June 14, 1999
Venue: Cunupia, Trinidad
Occasion: Address at the opening of the Cunupia Police Station
My Brothers and Sisters:
It must be now clear to all and Sundry that this Government of Trinidad and Tobago is tough on crime. We told the people of this country that we would intensify the war against crime and drugs, and we have done exactly that.
Those who break the law are in no doubt now that they will be relentlessly pursued, that they will be rigorously prosecuted, and that the sentences imposed upon them by the court will be carried out as swiftly as due process will permit.
We said that we would be tough on crime, and we meant exactly what we said. Our law enforcement agencies have responded magnificently to our call. The officers of the Police service have been leading the fight against crime with demonstrable success. I am not too sure that they have been receiving due credit for their achievements in serving and protecting the public, and in bringing criminals to justice.
There is no lack of attention when Police officers are involved in negative situations. However, the misdeeds of the rogue cops in the service must not be allowed to pollute the image of all police officers. The good deeds of the exemplary officers in the police service go largely unsung. I therefore seize this opportunity to pay public tribute to our men and women in uniform, our men and women in the security services who routinely put their lives on the line for the citizens of this country 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
I want to give the strongest assurance to Commissioner of Police Guy that though the work of the men and women he commands might go largely unsung, there is no lack of appreciation of their work, and their worth, on the part of the Government.
We must also demonstrate our appreciation in other meaningful ways. We must ensure that acts of heroism by our policemen and women are recalled and recounted in media programming dedicated to the achievements of our men and women in gray and navy blue, our men and women in white and brown and sometimes camouflaged.
This will be a fitting complement to the current outreach programme mounted by the police. Parallel with this, the Government will continue to find the resources necessary to provide the police service with the equipment, the training, the technology and the facilities that will strengthen the hands of police in their fight against the lawless in the society.
On this score, I would be interested in the thoughts of members of the police service, and with their approval, the thoughts of the general public, on designs for new uniforms for our policemen and police-women, for their entry into the new millennium, next year. Should our police officers be refitted so that walkie-talkies and legal forms and notebooks are integrated into standard duty garb? And should police uniforms be better suited to our climatic conditions?
Such concerns on our part are consistent with the thrust that is typified in this new Police Station in Cunupia, constructed at a cost of close to $3 Million, in continuing delivery of our commitment to provide our police officers with everything that it takes for them to the job. It is also proof of the high priority that the Government attaches to our continuing crusade for law and good order, and for the safety and security of every citizen of Trinidad and Tobago.
Law and order is not only critical to the conduct of civil society. The matter of law and good order is also of serious concern to investors, local and international. It has been non-stop activity in our drive for top-rate facilities for the men and women charged with protecting our lives and property and the lives and property of our loved ones, weather it be in the Regiment, the Coast Guard or the Police Service, and the Prison Service.
We established police posts in Valencia and Cap-de-Ville in 1996. We commissioned Police Posts at Pinto Road, Longdenville and St. Barbs, in 1997. In the same year, police stations were completed and commissioned in Maraval, in Erin, at St. Madeleine, at Four Roads - Diego Martin, in Princes Town, and in Sangre Grande. Last year, Police Stations were completed at Barataria/El Socorro, in Gran Couva, at Mon Repos, in Freeport, at St. Mary's, in Moruga; and the Santa Cruz Station was reconditioned. A new station will be constructed at Arouca, later this year, and the San Juan and St James police stations are soon to be refurbished. The new Fraud Squad and Organised crime and Narcotics Building will also be completedthis year.
But even as we equip and outfit our police men and women with the mobility, the training, and the technology to fight crime in all its forms throughout Trinidad and Tobago, we are working on other fronts to deal with organised crime and particularly the international drug cartels. We have initiated major legal reform,with tougher laws, including a comprehensive and far reaching law to deal with money laundering. We have also upgraded the systems for the administration of justice.
The Community Policing Programme and Police Youth Clubs are vital in our drive to reduce lawlessness in the society. Last year, I had the opportunity to visit Police Youth Clubs throughout Trinidad and Tobago and to witness first hand the Community Policing programme in action. I am convinced that this partnership between the Police and the people is of inestimable value. There can be no higher priority than taking care of our young people, of providing them with a sound education, guiding them to positive life-styles, and encouraging them to lead productive lives.
I am pleased that the residents of Cunupia can now feel safer with this new facility in the community, and I call upon every resident of this community, and indeed the national community, to support, to assist, to befriend the police as they go about their business of protecting and serving you.
The fight against crime continues on the broad national front, and on the international front. The Government has formed anti-crime alliances with a number of countries, including Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Sates of America, and with our CARICOM neighbours. In this context, major treaties are to be signed in Port of Spain in a couple of weeks, during the Twentieth Meeting of the Heads of Governments of the Caribbean Community. The CARICOM decision to establish the Caribbean Court of Justice will be formalised.
We have identified NIPDEC House, at the corner of Cipriani Boulevard and Tragarete Road, as the seat of the Caribbean Court of Justice and we will propose this to the CARICOM Summit. Proceedings, which have been taking place at NIPDEC House, will be transferred to the refurbished court complex on St. Vincent Street in Port of Spain. Regional Heads will also set the seal of approval on the Regional Justice Programme, initiated by my Administration. This programme will provide a regional network for the protection of members of the judiciary, witnesses, court officials, and their families.
Our security services conducted an efficient and successful witness protection exercise in the matter of the notorious drug related killings, in respect of which, the court's decisions have been finally carried out. One outcome to the legal maneuverings to frustrate the fulfillment of justice in that matter, was the strong condemnation by our Appeal Court, and by the Privy Council, of counsel's cynical, frivolous and vexatious use of the judicial process to impede that very process. This would not have happened had the Opposition supported a Government Bill to prohibit such a mockery of the Law. Failure to pass that law has cost this country millions of dollars in legal fees.
Over the last few months, this country witnessed a crusade of unprecedented intensity, motivated by and linked to international abolitionist and other lobbies, seeking relief on behalf of the perpetrators of the most heinous crimes.Every legal tactic was employed to position the implementation of the court's decision as a matter of public morality, rather than a question of justice.
Trinidad and Tobago was virtually put on trial by the international lobbies who intervene in such matters. It was a matter of morality, we were told, not justice. I am still trying to reconcile that proposition with logic. Capital punishment is a matter of law. It is the function of Government, acting on behalf of the state, and acting in the interest of the common good of the people, and by their will to enforce the law, without favour and without fear. It is the duty of society to respect the law. If you do not like the law, then change the law. But do not disregard the law. Do not disrespect the law. To do so is to encourage a lawless society.
In the great furore that marked the implementation of capital sentences, hardly a note was heard from any trumpet, nary a sound from any drum, issuing from any quarter, expressing any concern over the loss of the lives of the victims of crimes, or over the pain and hardship suffered by the families of such victims. It is a flawed humanity that fails to shed a tear for victims of violent crimes, or fails to lift a finger to help the families of those victims, while stridently championing the cause of people found guilty- after due and just and protracted process - of crime that are among the most foul and heinous criminal deeds.
Notwithstanding the fact that in every sampling, in every poll, in every survey, the overwhelming majority of the citizenry of our part of the world call for capital punishment, it is always the option for those who would abolish capital punishment to use due process to change the relevant law.
There can be no problem with that. The wish for the law to be changed was implied in the recent Constitutional motion which sought a judgement declaring hanging unconstitutional. That motion was rejected by our country's courts and by the Privy Council. It cannot be justice when people professing to be opposed to capital punishment describe this country as a nation of barbarians. I reject this gratuitous insult to the people of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. We never hear such epithets applied to the United States when capital sentences are carried out in that country, do we? Instead, most of the critics are busy trying to get a
Green Card to migrate to the very United States.
Let me tell you this, in the Government that I lead, we have never flinched; we will never flinch from our duty to the people of the Republic, no matter how difficult the just decisions that fall to our responsibility. We understand and share the outrage and the pain of every citizen when people's lives are brutally snuffed out by heartless criminals. We understand and share the outrage and the pain of every citizen when innocent defenseless children and women are terrorised and brutalised by beasts in human form.
And we are doing something about it. Compensation for victims is now an option. Much stiffer penalties and mandatory minimum sentences for the perpetrators of rape and other violent crimes, including those using guns in the commission of crimes, are receiving the attention of the Ministry of the Attorney General. There will be no letting up in our fight against crime for that is the job we said we would do. Because of the dedication, competence, courage and effectiveness of the majority of our police officers of all ranks, we are getting the job done.
My concluding thought is that the people of Cunupia and surrounding districts will welcome this new police station not only a place to turn to when they are in trouble, but as a place to turn their children to, in order to keep them out of trouble. In my vision, the best strategy to beat crime and defeat criminals is a strong, enduring partnership of trust between the police and the people.
I hope that this will take place, here in Cunupia.
Thank you, my friends.
God Bless you.