Media Release

Media Release
January 31, 2017

The Political Leader of the National Solidarity Assembly (NSA) and President General of the All Trinidad General Workers’ Trade Union (ATGWTU) Nirvan Maharaj is calling on the Peoples National Movement Government and the Opposition United National Congress to rise above the pettiness of scoring cheap political points against each other and immediately join together across the table of brotherhood and in the national interest find a way to deal with the savagery and brutality of a crime scourge never before experienced in this Country.

An aura of abject fear and terror is now stalking our twin island nation state and we can no longer continue to blame each other, but instead work together for the national good. The Peoples National Movement must understand that it is no longer in Opposition but is now in charge of steering the ship of state. It can no longer continue to blame the Opposition UNC for every ill in the society since; it is the PNM who now bears the responsibility of Government and as such must be answerable as those who govern always is.

I therefore wish to openly support the call by the Leader of the Opposition for an extraordinary sitting of Parliament, in order to deal with the escalating crime situation. However, for once in our nation’s history this sitting of Parliament must not be about debate and party paramountcy and winner takes all. Instead it must be a sitting of Parliament based on the concept of a ‘National Front Parliament’- a joint and unified effort by the PNM and UNC to arrive at immediate short term, medium term and long term solutions to our crime situation. It must be a Parliament of representatives of the citizenry of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and not simply representatives of the PNM or UNC political party.

The People of this nation are utterly fed up of meaningless words, signifying nothing and crime being used as a political football. Statistics and theory cannot stop the tears and pain and misery of the victims of crime and the anguish of families who have had loved ones, murdered, robbed, raped and brutalised in the worst manner.

Our nation is under siege and we must declare a state of war on the criminals who like minions of hell plague the land. There are people who have no compassion, no feelings, no rational, no conscience, they are soulless and driven by scavenger like animalistic instinct, they will, kill, rape, rob and brutalise and torture without any remorse. These people must be removed from normal society.

We must fight fire with fire and the State must lead the charge in ensuring that every citizen is able to enjoy their constitutional right to enjoyment of property and to live in safety and security without fear or terror.

We must start by the UNC and the PNM joining together to ensure the implementation of the death penalty as a start, not necessarily as a deterrent to all crime but as a just and fitting punishment for certain deliberate and pre-mediated horrific crimes committed.
Those who have violated the human rights of innocent law abiding citizens must themselves be stripped of the right to escape fitting punishment or to continue destroying the society and the lives of law abiding citizens.

The time has also come for the Parliament to consider the Reform of our Constitution to allow after proper checks and balances for the right of our citizens to bear arms. It cannot be that we are going to allow innocent law abiding citizens to be sheep and fodder for criminals to whom the ownership of illegal firearms is a norm without fear of the law. Citizens must be given a fighting chance to defend themselves, since there cannot be a Police Officer in every home. The law cannot continue to operate to the detriment of our law abiding citizens by stripping them of the means of defending themselves.

I also agree with the Leader of the Opposition that our women, or sisters and daughters and wives and nieces and our mothers be allowed to protect themselves with Pepper Spray and Tasers. They must be given the chance to at least have a chance to escape from the human predators that seek to hunt them.

We cannot continue to sacrifice the safety of our people on misused theoretical concepts of human rights for criminals who violate the rights of others without remorse, otherwise we may very well lose our nation and the safety of our people on the altar of misguided liberalism and humanist thought. The victims of crime and the families of those murdered are the ones who know the difference between theory and the practical reality of a criminal animal.

It is no longer about human rights as much as it is about human survival especially in a society where criminals have seemingly gone mad and running wild and unchecked.

Yours sincerely
Nirvan Maharaj
(Attorney-at-Law)
President General (ATGWTU)
3rd Vice President (NATUC)