Flambeau on Crime

Have you ever gone out to “Flambeautae “, I have and I must say it was one of the most fun things that I have ever done. If you have not and you do not know what it means to go “Flambeauteaing”, then you may want to go someday. You will need a torch or a bright light to shine your way and to also illuminate the fish, crawfish and eels, as they lay at the water’s edge sleeping. You have to have your cutlass because we hunted by slicing the prey through the water with one deft stroke. That is exactly what happens when one goes out to“Flambeautae “,shining the light. Flambeautae is simply fishing using light. Let us shine some light on the drug and guns making their way into St Lucia. Remove such underground activities out of the darkness and make it as plain as day. In so doing, we can make the situation seem as approachable as a home cooked meal. Let’s go fishing.

You needed to be well equipped to go haunting for the bounties we would find while we snaked our way down the Patience River. We would choose a spot somewhere up stream and make our way downstream to where the river met the bay. All along the way torches and cutlasses in hand, we caught whatever our light shone on, providing it was edible. We made sure we kept an eye out for other predators that might be out hunting that night too, a la fer-de-lance. We can use this same concept here when it come to patrolling our coastal waters, pursuing and bagging those criminal who attempt to enter our sovereign waters with illegal contraband.

A couple of unmanned aerial plane with mounted cameras or a hot air balloons deployed high into the atmosphere, somewhat like a satellites would provide eyes in the sky. We need logistical support for our coast guards so that they can effectively carry out their job. Letting them know when something is coming in with some eyes in the sky patrolling the length of the coast or would stop this influx of drugs and guns into St Lucia.

Let us shift some resources, source American expertise, training and funding to set up a drag net around St Lucia. We can set up a surveillance system that is as blinding to criminals as the fog lamps mounted on top of the coast guard patrol boats. Let’s get some surveillance going that will intercept the illegal narcotics and guns coming into our borders. Let’s make it unsavoury and even scary for criminals to approach St Lucia. With effective search and capture initiatives we can deters criminals from entering our waters, thus preventing guns and drug s from entering our borders.

Since we are on the topic of shining light on to things, the establishment of an internal investigation unit to investigate officers would help weed out corruption within the police force. Corrupt elements within the police force must be held accountable by an investigations unit which is separate from the existing Royal St Lucia Police Force (RSPL). The police should not be policing themselves.

With that said it may sound contradictory when i also suggest the establishment of a covert unit of officers trained in counter narcotics expertise, one that fly’s under the radar. I ounce had an officer friend of mine, who was an avid runner, he always used to tell me don’t let the criminals train harder than you and be more prepared than you, never let that happen. We need a team of officer that are trained to do the things people want but are afraid to face head on. They prefer to stick their heads and the sand and hope it is better in the morning.

All those found committing a crime associated to a firearm should be prosecuted, convicted and given a strict sentence with no leniency. Let’s take a different approach maybe we should pursue the gun manufactures. Let as rightfully place some of the responsibility of gun crime unto the gun manufacturers. The caveat here is that we should sue them and use the money to fund our counter narcotics operations. The cost of such undertakings should be placed squarely on the manufacturers’ shoulders. We need to get the gun manufactures to take responsibility for the negative externalities and effects that their weapons are intimately attached to.

While we continue to invest in a well trained core of coast guards, with reliable equipment, and training. Increase the number and frequency of patrols and build linkages with other islands. They are combating the same problems. We can share tools, expertise human resources. Drug runners like the fact that the Caribbean is an archipelago and is teeming with islands and hidden coves and bays.

The scourge affecting St Lucia is for the most part being imported in. The problem is not found at the top of a lush green mountain but rather on our white sand Beaches, it may manifest itself in the ghetto but it is the influx of powder and guns that is seeding this crime situation in St Lucia. These illegal underground imports to our shores, needs the bright light of justice shone on them. Shine our light all over our borders and land. Let’s take a page from an old tried and tested method, people let’s go “Flambeauteaing” for traffickers and we will see a marked improvement in the crime situation in St Lucia. Let’s go fishing, all aboard.

Papa Syndrome , Daddy Polictics

On a Sunday morning Catholic Church goers would have to travel to Micoud to attend sermon. That was before the St Ann’s church was built in Mon repos. For many years Micoud had the only secondary school on the east coast as well. Progresses have been made over the last fifty years on the east coast, but arguably it can be describe as simply the provision of basic necessities. Overall it can be summed up as Pipe borne water, electricity and the access to primary and secondary education. St Lucia’s legacy of community based political representation, leaves a lot to be desired. It is therefore understandable that people do not have faith in their representatives.
Mentioning that a politician is interested in the welfare of the everyday person is usually met with apathy and scorn. What have they really done for us is usually the question. Yes to be fair we have playing fields, the few major projects such as, the fishing complex in Denerry must definitely be mentioned. But really let us stop beating around the bush and asses political representation objectively. Of course we should not expect politicians to do everything for us but we must also remember the person applied for a job and is getting paid.

Our politics has rightfully been labeled chicken and rum politics because politicians are likely to socialize with the constituents at the rum shop, buy a shot for the patrons and maybe a few pieces of BBQ chicken for the people. An occasional “drop in” on the weekends and maybe more heavily during campaign season, should get the vote in. How often do you hear politicians express ideas that he or she is willing to undertake on behalf of the communities. It is mostly a patriarchal relationship characterized by the “Daddy X” syndrome. Daddy helps his supporters find jobs, go to school, travel, and deal with legal issues.

Well if the relationship woks why should we change it. The problem is it is not working because we can do better and of course by doing better both the people and their pappy benefit more in the end. Pappy needs to do something for the people so he can boast about it and the people need avenues to get ahead.

Rather than the relationship between voter and candidate being one, whereby the candidate sees his job as a privilege he understands it is a duty handed to him by the voters. He or she is not” Daddy”, but rather here to serve as the collectively elected representative. In essence the objective of the candidate is to seek out ways of bettering their constituents and the lives of the people therein. The candidate is getting paid to do a job and it is not charity on their part.

This is precisely why I am supposed to shock everyone when I say, we can build a wind energy grid on the east coast of St Lucia. People are supposed to say, how that will be done and why is that such a good idea. Because the east coast is the windward coast, and yes a proposal sourcing funding for a green initiative, would have a great chance of being successful. Not to mention the grid if it is owned by the Micoud north community , will be selling electricity and thus making an income and thereby pay off itself.

When the person you vote for is expected to conceptualize, create and implement projects that will better the communities they represent. Then the people benefit and the candidate benefits as well. The politics is elevated and the people’s standard of living is elevated. And providing that you can actually achieve some effective compressive change, you can be asked to be called pappy. Although one might want to keep that for home. Oh, and definitely do not post the video of you being called pappy on the net either, you’ll soon be on YouTube, talk or even TMZ.

Papa Syndrome: Daddy X

On a Sunday morning Catholic Church goers would have to travel to Micoud to attend sermon. That was before the St Ann’s church was built in Mon Repos. For many years Micoud had the only secondary school on the east coast as well. Progresses have been made over the last fifty years on the east coast, but arguably it can be describe as simply the provision of basic necessities. Overall it can be summed up as Pipe borne water, electricity and the access to primary and secondary education. St Lucia’s legacy of community based political representation, leaves a lot to be desired. It is therefore understandable that people do not have faith in their representatives.

Mentioning that a politician is interested in the welfare of the everyday person is usually met with apathy and scorn. What have they really done for us is usually the question. Yes to be fair we have playing fields, the few major projects such as, the fishing complex in Denerry must definitely be mentioned. But really let us stop beating around the bush and asses political representation objectively. Of course we should not expect politicians to do everything for us but we must also remember the person applied for a job and is getting paid.

Our politics has rightfully been labeled chicken and rum politics because politicians are likely to socialize with the constituents at the rum shop, buy a shot for the patrons and maybe a few pieces of BBQ chicken for the people. An occasional “drop in” on the weekends and maybe more heavily during campaign season, should get the vote in. How often do you hear politicians express ideas that he or she is willing to undertake on behalf of the communities. It is mostly a patriarchal relationship characterized by the “Daddy X” syndrome. Daddy helps his supporters find jobs, go to school, travel, and deal with legal issues.

Well if the relationship woks why should we change it. The problem is it is not working because we can do better and of course by doing better both the people and their pappy benefit more in the end. Pappy needs to do something for the people so he can boast about it and the people need avenues to get ahead.

Rather than the relationship between voter and candidate being one, whereby the candidate sees his job as a privilege he understands it is a duty handed to him by the voters. He or she is not” Daddy”, but rather here to serve as the collectively elected representative. In essence the objective of the candidate is to seek out ways of bettering their constituents and the lives of the people therein. The candidate is getting paid to do a job and it is not charity on their part.

This is precisely why I am supposed to shock everyone when I say, we can build a wind energy grid on the east coast of St Lucia. People are supposed to say, how that will be done and why is that such a good idea. Because the east coast is the windward coast, and yes a proposal sourcing funding for a green initiative, would have a great chance of being successful. Not to mention the grid if it is owned by the Micoud north community , will be selling electricity and thus making an income and thereby pay off itself.

When the person you vote for is expected to conceptualize, create and implement projects that will better the communities they represent. Then the people benefit and the candidate benefits as well. The politics is elevated and the people’s standard of living is elevated. And providing that you can actually achieve some effective compressive change, you can be asked to be called pappy. Although one might want to keep that for home. Oh, and definitely do not post the video of you being called pappy on the net either, you’ll soon be on YouTube and TMZ.

What We Do Best

An uncle of mine ounce told me about a time, when the community undertook a, “coup de main”. They hacked and slashed their way through the rain-forest to the Patience River’s source. This was done in other to lay the pipes that would bring water to houses, from Micoud to Praslin. Some of us may also remember how in an instant a flash storm brought tree trunks the size of cars, down the same Patience River. Consider how, change is constantly happening, sometimes like flash storms it happens unexpectedly and at times we are able to anticipate them. St Lucia must place itself at the cutting edge of innovation and therefore invest in research and development.Such measures will help better adjust to the constant economical changes.

One might ask what type of research initiatives should we invest in, when we do not have that much capital to spend in the first place. Investment in Research and Development Initiatives compliments the banking sectors perfectly. It is a win, win situation that provides the government with a chance to invest in its people and the country’s infrastructure and also provide Banking clients the opportunity to make greater returns on their investment, rather than if they had simply placed their monies in a savings account.

We can undertake research into, Malaria, Dengue, and Sickle Cell Anemia. We are already quite involved in food services, we should extend our commitment by investing into food research. For example a traditional food such as arrowroot, the plant which we call “Toloman”, has been proven to be a versatile and effective starch product. The starch said to be superior to thann that from other plant sources.

Another idea would be to,completely making St Lucia’s electricity grid run on clean fuels such, solar, wind and or wave action, thereby directly investing into green technology, and future innovations simultaneously. And one final example,the beauty and fashion industries utilize extracts from plants such as the hibiscus, aloe Vera and cocoa,the use tropical flavors such as passion fruit and tangerine,here is an opportunity for investment.

We have year round summers, arguably with our exposure, we should be dictating summer fashion. In these areas where we have an advantage we should be pushing the envelope and reach for the forefront of innovation and technology. The only way however to achieve this is to invest in Research and Development.

This quote was taken from the Star Newspaper of St Lucia “Those countries that do very well spend at least three percent or more of GDP on R&D (research and development)”. It was attributed to Mr Peter Adrien. The article was in reference to Sir Arthur Lewis’s theory on Economic development. Here is another statement gleaned from an online article of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB America Magazine) “South Korea invests more in research and development (R&D) than all Latin American nations combined”. South Korea like Taiwan is one of the few countries that has been able to foster economic success sine the end of world war two. These observations reinforce the importance of investing in Research and Development.

In the not so distant past, St Lucia could have easily been derogatorily referred to as a banana republic. At present a major part of our economy is dependent on tourism. It is also a fact that we are vulnerable to changes in the global economy. The recent global recession has once again proven that. In order to cope with such unavoidable problems, policy makers must be prudent, in that they must have responsive, yet innovative approaches to development. One proven approach has been investments in Research and Development. We are easily susceptible to the adverse effects of change and therefore we must make the fullest use of our economical comparative advantages.