Dudus is a familiar story
Trinidadians are becoming increasingly alarmed by the murders and a flourishing trade in cocaine and guns, writes Raoul Pantin.
The Dudus story is familiar to those of us in Trinidad who are becoming increasingly alarmed by the murders (500 a year average) and the flourishing trade in cocaine and guns.
The previous PNM government of Prime Minister Patrick Manning had open links with so-called ‘community leaders’, who were in fact gangsters with control over whole poor communities. Respectable business links to the cocaine trade are also suspect though so well covered it's almost impossible to expose.
One particular swanky residential area is known as Cocaine Alley because of suspicions of links between the high-profile businessmen who live there and the cocaine trade. The importation of guns is also a flourishing business linked to the cocaine trade.
Criminal activity here, often referred to as ‘gang wars’ by the police largely involves competition for territory and control of the trade in illegal drugs.