Letter From Port of Spain

3CommentsJoin

Sign-up for free weekly updates from ForeignAffairs.com.

On May 24, election day in Trinidad and Tobago, Patrick Manning, who had ruled the republic as prime minister for 12 of the past 18 years, appeared on television. He looked stunned, and his speech was halting as he admitted that the coalition led by Kamla Persad Bissessar, a 58-year-old lawyer and career politician, had won a landslide victory, gaining 29 of the 41 seats in parliament.

The abrupt change in the country’s political power filled the streets with a sense of joyous relief. Pickup trucks loaded with tall speakers cruised through many neighborhoods, playing soca music and broadcasting slogans from Persad Bissessar’s campaign. The night was humid and soggy, but people lingered on the streets to shake their neighbors’ hands, honk car horns, dance behind d.j. trucks, and drink beer and rum.

Policymakers in the United States and Europe are also paying attention. Trinidad and Tobago is a significant exporter of natural gas, which makes it something of a regional power in the West Indies. It has the largest economy in the English-speaking Caribbean; although its population is only half the size of Jamaica’s, its GDP is nearly twice as large. The country’s capital, Port of Spain, is the principal banking hub for investing in the Caribbean, and the city has also become a magnet for a young, professional class of immigrant workers from nearby “small island” countries. Trinidad is a regional military power, too: it has the largest navy in the West Indies, and its military often assists in regional disaster relief.

Its strategic location -- just seven miles off the coast of Venezuela -- also means that Trinidad is a key shipment hub for the cocaine trade. As elsewhere in the Caribbean, the illegal drug trade has corrupted much of the police force and undermined political institutions and the rule of law. Over the past decade, gang violence and government corruption have caused civil society to nearly unravel. Successive governments in Port of Spain have bought the support of urban criminal groups through generous -- but only marginally effective -- make-work schemes, which allow gang members to charge inflated rates for small-scale infrastructure projects. In attempts to control more territory, and thus gain more access to government largesse, these gangs have turned parts of the capital into virtual war zones. More than 500 people are murdered in Trinidad and Tobago each year, representing one of the highest per-capita ratios in the world. The effect has been chilling: these days, parties and events are scheduled for afternoons, so participants can safely return home before dark.

In 2002, Manning, then prime minister, convened a meeting of gang leaders in a bid to halt violence. He offered them increased payouts in the form of development grants for landscaping and construction projects. Manning began referring to some of these kingpins as ”community leaders,” and they, in turn, began acting as a force of political mobilization. During the May election, police say, candidates from Manning’s party were handing out checks worth thousands of dollars to gang members and promising them more fat contracts.

So far, the new government is confronting these gangs head-on. In mid-July, it put forward legislation that makes gang membership a crime punishable by 20 years in prison. The government has also proposed changes to laws on bail and illegal firearm possession, which would allow police to deny bail to suspected gang members for up to five days.

The ascendancy of Persad Bissessar has raised hopes among foreign investors, diplomats, and Trinidadians themselves that the new government can reverse some of the mistakes of the past. But the West would be wise to temper its early enthusiasm. Manning’s administration was extremely corrupt and inefficient, and Persad Bissessar faces a tall order in reshaping the political culture in Port of Spain.
Beyond the recent anti-gang policies, Persad Bissessar needs competent help in instituting bureaucratic procedures that bolster economic development, the rule of law, and citizen trust in government.

Yet, instead of articulating a new strategy for reinvigorating the economy, breaking the power of gangs, or pursuing drug smugglers, Persad Bissessar has spent much of her energy since the election publicly humiliating Manning and calling for inquiries against him and his associates. Such investigations seem wise given the likely scale of the looting of the treasury by Manning and his cronies. But this kind of tit-for-tat vindictiveness can be particularly destabilizing for a small democracy.

In one of its first moves, the new government installed John Sandy, a retired military officer, as national security adviser. Appointing a military official to the post revealed a sinking confidence in the police, which was further emphasized by Persad Bissessar’s suggestion to temporarily deploy the nation's soldiers, and even low-wage private security guards, to do police work. This reform of supplementary manpower makes sense, but only in the short run: sooner or later, the bad apples within the police will need to be fired and tried for their crimes. In addition, the idea raises some constitutional questions, since the country’s judges do not allow evidence on gang activity that was obtained by the military.