Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5 welcome back ladies and gentlemen. We welcome to our program at this point in time. He's been with us on several occasions, joins us this morning once again, Shivanos West MP Dinesh Rambali. Good morning to you. Nice to have you with us.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Good morning, Satish, and thank you again for having me on your program. Good morning to your listeners and pleasant good Tuesday morning to everyone.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a pretty busy morning this morning, you can tell.
And it's nice to have you with us this morning. There's you. You sent out a release recently and you've been making some pronouncements on the issue of crime.
And you spoke in particular about the brutal murder of Christopher Raj Bali, who was killed. And I think the video has made the rounds as to how he was murdered in San Fernando. Tell us about your thoughts in this press release that you issued.
[00:01:04] Speaker B: Well, Satish, again, I mean we put out the press release with the hope that, you know, when these incidents occur, I mean, we are talking about brutality of the highest level. You're talking about the criminal elements snuffing all the lives out of ordinary law abiding citizens. And in some instances, even if citizens may not be on the straight path, you know, let's say they may be somehow involved, you know, in business transactions or otherwise, we tend to say that, you know, to govern any disputes. Our society, however, is taking the pathway of the criminal elements having their way. And when you see that, you know, somebody is just simply, you know, killed in this with high powered weapons, it is clear that the individual was killed with high powered, you know, weapons. And also the manner, the style of killing is not an ordinary person just passing by and, you know, he was shot at random.
This was done in such a manner, when you look at that video, it was calculated. These people seem to be professional killers. And so what you're dealing with is a very high level of criminality in the country and they seem to be better in their game whilst the government and the law enforcement arm of the government of the state seem to be somehow limping along. And this is why we have to raise these things because at the end of the day, the person who is killed, I know you have spoken about this in your program from time to time. There's a primary radius, a secondary radius of trauma victims. In this case, you have a father who has now left a wife and two kids behind and other relatives.
What is going to happen to that immediate family the community has suffered a blow because in this particular instance, when I issued the press release, because I knew very recently, just a couple months ago, that whole, that entire community, the Felicity WhatsApp chats, started to buzz because at that time they were of the view, whilst it had not been confirmed just yet by the Ministry of Education, but they were already so happy and championing their own cause that, look, one of the children of Felicity in the school took the SCA exams in the country.
And so you can imagine that this is how a community comes together and they celebrate. But in a moment like this, when the criminal elements get the upper hand, everybody is now drowned in sorrow. And so I issued that release because it seems as though, sadly, since 2022, I have been clamoring by way of opposition press conferences, by way of the press releases that we were heading down a road where we would not be able to come back to turn and bring back the country to a state of mitigated crime. And so said so done. Unfortunately, in 2022, as I had predicted then, because all the signs were showing we were going to cross the highest murder toll in the history of Trinidad and Tobago. And again, unfortunately, that came to pass then. What you have is you just have talk and more talk coming from government officials, coming right up from the Prime Minister who is head of the National Security Council.
When we said towards the end of 2022 that, look, something needs to, something has to give, what you heard was, okay, well, there will be a day of prayer. Okay, fine. That has come and gone. We spoke about having joint discussions. What has happened to that? The only thing that materializes, the Prime Minister was able and his government was able to join other CARICOM leaders to all hold hands and sing together that, look, crime is affecting us all, but that is not helping the ordinary citizenry and satish this incident that I would have issued my press release with respect to what have happened, if I remember correctly, Thursday, lo and behold, by Saturday morning, you would have seen another businessman killed in Central in Montrose. So where does it end? Where is this going to stop? And if we expect, if we would like it to stop, what kind of intervention are we going to put in place that we can combat the criminal elements on their level? Right now, they are on our level and they are just, you know, defeating us on occasion after occasion, snuffing the lives out of innocent citizens. We have as law enforcement, we have to go down into the criminal element level now and deal with them in a way that has not been done before. But you have to have political will which this government clearly does not have. You have to have competence which this government is not displaying. You have to have some sense of empathy towards the law abiding population which is government seems to be totally devoid of. So I mean the best we can do as members of the opposition, myself included, is to highlight the plight and to show solidarity with the victims of these crimes. Unfortunately, you know, we will do the best we can, but we show the solidarity and we ask the contradiction solidarity. Be our brother's keeper in the meantime. But really I have called for joint dog. Satish, you have heard me made this call before. Let's put aside political egos, let's get down to work. But I have never taken the position that in any way the government is to be absolved. And I mean it comes along if we can't have those joint talks, I still clamor for it. But if not, the government still has the ultimate responsibility under our constitution and our governance system that they need to get down into the trenches and show that they can do something. Right now they are failing miserably in combating crime.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: When we've had so many discussions on this program about crime, it's spoken to practically everybody you could think of except well, the Minister of National Security because for whatever reason he does not, he does not accept our invitations to come on the program.
And that's just the sad reality. We've reached out as well to the Minister in the Ministry of the National Security.
He too we've not had a positive response from him wanting to come onto the show. Shah that we've spoken to everybody else, he had a homicide, you could think about them. You outlined the things that the government does not have the competence, the will and all of these other things.
So then where is the, the fight back to come from? Because if the administration of the day is the one who's supposed to crack the whip, in essence that's what they need to do, crack the whip to get police or put resources in place or whatever it is they're supposed to. If they don't, if they're not doing it or they can't do it, who do we look to? You know, there's a song, I Need a hero.
Where does this hero come from?
[00:08:09] Speaker B: Well Satish, I want to say that the hero has to come from the people.
This is why last week, sorry, I mean I'm pegging a little bit off track now on going to this latest SRC recommendations and the hike in salaries for top officials. Right, including government Elected officials.
I saw that as a means by which I think the government is displaying clearly that it is completely isolated from the people it is supposed to serve. And when you ask, well, who is going to put up the fight? Where are we going to get the answers? You know, who's going to be the hero? I think this government has now become what I would call a deviant subculture. One where the ministers, you yourself have indicated there that, look, you know, you have issued, and I follow your program regularly, and I know that you would recite from time to time who you would have issued invitations to and was unable to get them on the program. And I also follow those who have made themselves available. For example, Captain Gary Griffith.
You had Gavin here. I have listened to these gentlemen because I think they have a lot to offer in terms of national security. But what you have is a government that has become a deviant subculture in itself. And why? I say that because the ministers, their MPs seem to have values which differ substantially from the rest of the population, from the majority of the society. So whereas we seem to be earth and we are fearful, we are overwhelmed now with this crime situation, they seem to be living some kind of lucrative lifestyle where they are immune from the societal ills. And this is where we had a call and I joined this call to have this, that people should come out last Saturday opposite the Whitehall. And I think that it was a success in that it was a start. I saw numbers in the hundreds, if you ask me. How many hundreds were there? I can't answer that, but there were certainly hundreds of persons gathered there. And I made this point on other programs during the course of last week, Thursday and Friday, that this rally has to be the beginning of where we, the citizens, are now going to pull back the society in the direction where we are going to send the signals to the government that they need to start following and listening to the people and they need to consult with the people because the people have to guide them. They obviously can't do it. They are not prepared to do it. So we have to start sending those kind of signals. So, in short, the hero has to be the unity in the people right now. And that is what I am, you know, hopefully between now and the end of the year and moving forward. That is the message I would want to give people of Trinidad to be good, that, listen, we need to unite now more than ever before. Because it is in this unity that you will find the hero, you will find the valor, you will find the courage to get the Things that needs to be done to start correcting things in a society. And when I say get things done, it will hopefully translate into some kind of movement that would guide the political culture. It will guide those who are the officials at this point in time to do things in a particular way that it will demand more transparency from those in high office and competence and leadership. But right now the country is sorely lacking in terms of leadership. We have absolutely virtually no leadership. And I think that is the biggest problem. So the start was last Saturday. And again I want to say that what I saw was I saw a lot of, I don't like to use the word third parties. I think political parties when they are formed, once they have an ideology which resonates with the fundamental principles of good governance and you have a following. It could be 10, it could be 15, it could be a thousand, it could be, you know, more than that. I think that these political parties are parties that, you know, we ought to listen to, that we should consult with. And I saw many of these movements and political parties there on Saturday. And yes, you know, they were all hugs and I think camaraderie, which in my view it leaves me with some optimism that all is not lost. We just need to get down to work. And the hero is going to come from that kind of work, from the people now. But the people needs to stand up against this level of incompetence of the government.
[00:12:54] Speaker A: Well, looking back, I'm challenged to find instances where the population came together.
I remember in my television days there was The Keith Noel 136 committee that was led by Stephen Cadiz after one of his employees was Keith Nowell was killed. He was murder number 136 for the year. And I remember that march that they held in Port of Spain being one of the largest non political events to be held at that point in time.
As to what was achieved. Well, we know that Stephen Katie's went into politics after that and and subsequent we had the Andrea Barat movement.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: And the Andrea Barratt movement saw a coming together that was not usual in this country.
But I had said back then that unless the Andrea Bayard movement turn into something more formalized, it will not achieve anything.
And fast forward to today if we are to not because you want to beat up on anybody or you want to be unkind, but what has really been achieved with all of that activism. Remember every day there was a motorcade. You had motorcades spanning the whole highway from San Fernando all the way to Port of Spain. And people Gathering for nights and lighting candles, all kinds of things. And they say pepper spray come out of that. I don't know who have pepper spray, how you could get it because it seems like if you pull out a tooth to apply and get that and all everything else. And I said no one has it, Satisha.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: Nonetheless be clear about that. Yeah, that has not been implemented. That has not translated to protecting women, any society at all.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: We heard all kinds of things. But really and truly, and I don't mean to sound pessimistic, maybe I'm trying to be realistic, our population is divided amongst so many different elements and our divisions have been used to keep us apart for the very same to avoid. In my opinion, the very same thing that you say needs to be done which is that our people need to come together. But before that could happen, everybody's studying who's Indian, who's African, who's unc, who's pnm, who's nta, and then apart from that, who harmony and who harmony and who's 1% and who's this percent? And those things confuse these discussions. Unfortunately that's all the time that we have.
But it's a. I understand the point that you're trying to drive home and the message that you're trying to leave with our listeners is one that needs to resonate. As a people, we need to come together as to who's going to be able to achieve that or if a nation, as a nation, we're going to be able to achieve that. We will have this discussion in 2025.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: I just want to leave it one last comment.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: You need to make it, you need to make it quick because we have the news.
[00:15:50] Speaker B: The last comment is that we need to unite, change things if we intend to save. That's the only question. Do we want to save our country? And if the answer is yes, we will have to unite. Thank you Satish.
[00:16:00] Speaker A: Thank you so much for being with us. That's all the time we have. Really interesting discussion digging deep into who we are as a people and whether or not we want the change that some of us speak about.
Those discussions we'll have for a long period of time. We thank the MP for being with us. The best insight, instant feedback, accountability, the all new Talk Radio Freedom 106.5.
