When A Toothless Tiger Roars

Where Were They?

The sleeping tiger woke up and roared but she will soon be asleep again. This ostrich like mentality of the defenders of the rights of the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago is in fact the reason for the abuses of the Constitution of T&T. Economic colonialism ensures that our legal representative toe the line or be “put out to pastures”. These abuses are not new, where was this legal body when these violations occurred when they are known internationally.

Today, an article appeared in the Trinidad Express Newspaper highlighting breaches of the principles of the Constitution as outlined by the Trinidad and Tobago Law Association. This is a body of lawyers who know that T&T citizen’s rights are being trampled on by the existing administrations. According to the Express Newspaper the Associations concerns was “provoked” by the following:

o Incidents of lockdowns of specific areas in Trinidad - citizens freedom of movement for essential services were curtailed for 6 days during the Summit of the Americas
o General detention, police brutality and “murders” There reports of Amnesty International stands as evidence.
o Abuse in the penal institutions - one measure of civilization is the treatment of inmates in their penal system
o The use of the military in police business – no investigative or police training but even the police are not properly trained so they are meeting the status quo outside of a state of emergency.
o Methods of surveillance – Cameras installed to monitor movements in specific areas are illegal because there is no legislation that support the installations.

It would appear that the intent of the article was to “remind” the government that these act were contrary to the constitution and nothing else. Truth is that all these violations have occurred and instead of these defenders of rights filing a suit or initiating some legal action they are reminding the government in a newspaper article. The citizens can now rest assured that things will change.

Taking a stand can be costly and it’s a lot cheaper to get an article published when “provoked” than to take any legal action. Hey, it’s a lot safer.

As always be well.