Brits brought in to help Trinidad & Tobago

Times:

THEY may be World Cup rivals, but off the pitch the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago has teamed up with England to try to kick crime out of the Caribbean.

The Government of the former Crown colony is spending £13 million over the next three years on hiring 39 serving and retired British police officers to bring their know-how to its outdated, struggling force.

Headed by Commander Ian Delbarre, who left the Metropolitan Police after 35 years to take the job, the team brings a wealth of experience in serious crime investigation to a country rife with gang activity, murder and kidnap.

Trinidad and Tobago, with a population of 1.3 million, had a record 386 murders last year, up 36 per cent on 2004. More than 75 per cent went unsolved.

“An island paradise? It’s the killing fields,” said Stephen Cadiz, a Trinidadian businessman and head of the Keith Noel 136 Committee, an anti-crime pressure group founded in memory of last year’s 136th murder victim.

There were a record 235 kidnappings last year, up nearly a third on 2004. Of the 12,919 complaints made against the police from 1999 to 2004, only 20 per cent were investigated, said Amnesty International.

Just seven miles from Venezuela, Trinidad and Tobago is on the trafficking route between South America and North America and Europe. “When our country was first used as a trans-shipment point we ignored it because our people were not users of the drugs and guns being shipped. But then some of it started to remain here as part-payment,” said Martin Joseph, the Minister for National Security.

“As a result, our law enforcement got out of alignment . . . it seems for some people that crime is paying. Clearly we needed assistance.”

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It is not clear that enough force is being brought in to deal with the narco thugs who are also probably getting some support from Chavez in Venezuela, who probably fears that the islands will be used as a jumping off point for a US invasion. He has been paranoid about an invasion for several yeaars and the islands would be a logical staging area.