Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

A Flori­da-based Trinidad and To­ba­go di­as­po­ra group is warn­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to be wary of en­ter­ing in­to any mil­i­tary part­ner­ship with Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

On Sat­ur­day at the Shield of the Amer­i­c­as Sum­mit in Do­ral, Flori­da, Per­sad-Bisses­sar com­mit­ted this coun­try to the multi­na­tion­al mil­i­tary and se­cu­ri­ty al­liance launched by Trump called the Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC).

Un­like pre­vi­ous ini­tia­tives fo­cused pri­mar­i­ly on law en­force­ment, the AC­CC em­pha­sis­es the use of mil­i­tary force to com­bat drug car­tels in the West­ern Hemi­sphere.

How­ev­er, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Di­as­po­ra of South Flori­da group said that while it wel­comes the coali­tion’s in­ten­tions in prin­ci­ple, it is not pleased with who is lead­ing the ini­tia­tive.

Its pres­i­dent, Cindy Mc Neal, told Guardian Me­dia, “Per­son­al­ly, if it was a dif­fer­ent Pres­i­dent, not Don­ald Trump right now.”

Mc Neal, who lives in Palm Beach, said Trinidad and To­ba­go needs to un­der­stand what she de­scribed as the US Pres­i­dent’s re­al in­ten­tions.

“He wants to take over the world. He wants to be the king. And if you refuse he is plan­ning to go to war with you and do what­ev­er it takes to get what he wants. He could do what­ev­er he wants. He has no fil­ter. He said noth­ing could stop him.”

As an ex­am­ple, Mc Neal said if one day Pres­i­dent Trump de­cides he wants a lead­er­ship change in T&T, he will do just that.

She added, “I’m all for our coun­try and for the oth­er coun­tries to fight all this car­tel and the drugs and every­thing that’s go­ing on. But to be hon­est, it’s the wrong Pres­i­dent.”

The di­as­po­ra group’s pres­i­dent said she is al­so con­cerned that Pres­i­dent Trump is us­ing the form­ing of this coali­tion as an­oth­er dis­trac­tion from al­le­ga­tions against him re­gard­ing the in­fa­mous “Ep­stein Files.”

Mean­while an­oth­er di­as­po­ra group, this time in New York, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Pro­gres­sive As­so­ci­a­tion of the USA, said it is re­main­ing hope­ful that the AC­CC will have a mean­ing­ful im­pact on crime.

Group pres­i­dent An­gela Coop­er told Guardian Me­dia, “Once this is about peace, we ap­plaud this ini­tia­tive.”

How­ev­er, Coop­er said the group awaits full dis­clo­sure on the lo­gis­tics of the coali­tion.

She said al­though their mem­bers now live in the US, it is heart­break­ing to see the acts of crim­i­nal­i­ty tak­ing place in T&T.

“It is alarm­ing. Yes, it is. And that’s why I said that we sup­port any­thing to bring some peace and qui­et to Trinidad and To­ba­go and to bring some sem­blance of, you know, bring down that crime rate.”

She added that when they read on­line ar­ti­cles about the crime in T&T, it is both heart-wrench­ing and fright­en­ing.

“Be­cause Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways been a peace­ful is­land. So, it’s very, very alarm­ing when you see all of the crime rate and all of the things that’s go­ing on,” Coop­er lament­ed.

“We would re­al­ly hope that this could be a so­lu­tion to that,” she added. “Let me just put it this way. Peo­ple are just wor­ried about the uptick in crime, and they just want it to stop. How we go about do­ing that, we as the peo­ple on the ground, we re­al­ly don’t have the pow­er to do that. We have to de­pend on our gov­ern­ment to make the best de­ci­sion pos­si­ble that could bring some peace to the is­land.”