Radio Free Europe, Czech Republic
May 31 2004
Georgia: Government Closes Border Checkpoint With Azerbaijan, Sends
Police Reinforcements To South Ossetia
By Jean-Christophe Peuch
The Georgian government in recent months has taken a series of
measures aimed at curbing the trafficking of goods from neighboring
Armenia and Azerbaijan. It has also ordered new checkpoints to be set
up to stop the inflow of contraband goods through the breakaway
Republic of South Ossetia. Tbilisi on 30 May decided to move a step
further in its fight against smugglers.
Prague, 31 May 2004 (RFE/RL) — Georgia has decided to temporarily
restrict border trade with Azerbaijan in a bid to curb illegal trade
with its southeastern neighbor.
New regulations were finalized yesterday by the National Security
Council.
They include closure of the so-called Red Bridge checkpoint, in the
southeastern Kvemo Kartli region, where four policemen were wounded
yesterday while trading fire with suspected smugglers.
Addressing reporters at a press briefing late yesterday, Georgian
security officials said illegal trade with Azerbaijan has presented
long-standing problems for the national economy. They said closure of
Red Bridge — which is the main checkpoint between the two countries
— should help law-enforcement forces restore control over all border
traffic.
The chairman of the Georgian Parliament’s committee for defense and
security affairs, Givi Targamadze, said that law-enforcement agencies
may be able to resolve the trafficking crisis within a few weeks,
hinting that similar operations may be conducted in the near future.
“I believe this problem could be solved within approximately one
month,” Targamadze said. “If there is a need to perform security
operations [such as the one conducted on 30 May], we should be given
the opportunity to do so. We must once and for all get free access to
Red Bridge and nearby [ethnic] Azerbaijani territories.”
Authorities in Tbilisi have noted a recent increase in illegal border
traffic through Kvemo Kartli, where most of Georgia’s ethnic
Azerbaijanis live. They say smugglers operating along the border have
created a criminal enclave that has become inaccessible to
law-enforcement agencies.”If smugglers want to fight us with bare
fists, we will respond in kind. But if they want to use their
weapons, we will respond with fire.” — Georgian Interior Minister
Baramidze
Georgia’s Deputy Security Minister Gigi Ugulava yesterday blamed
former Kvemo Kartli Governor Levan Mamaladze for making the region
open to illegal border trade with Azerbaijan.
Mamaladze was dismissed from his post after President Eduard
Shevardnadze resigned last November. Facing corruption charges, the
former Kvemo Kartli governor fled to Russia, where he is still
believed to be hiding.
Yesterday’s operation took place in the villages of Ponichala and
Karajala, which Georgian law-enforcement agencies claim have become
major regional smuggling hubs.
Early yesterday, some 200 special police forces raided Ponichala,
Karajala, and other nearby border villages, reportedly seizing
weapons, ammunition, explosives, drugs, jewelry, and other contraband
goods.
Georgian media report the dawn security sweep also resulted in the
arrest of an unspecified number of people.
Authorities in Tbilisi said suspected smugglers opened fire on
law-enforcement personnel, slightly wounding four of them.
Local residents in return complained about the strong-arm tactics,
saying police officers searched houses without proper warrants.
The new Georgian government, which has vowed to put an end to
corruption and other financial crimes, has recently taken steps to
restore control over border traffic with Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Soon after President Mikheil Saakashvili’s election last January,
security officials closed contraband paths leading from Armenia to
the border village of Sadakhlo, some 30 kilometers west of Red
Bridge.
Located close to the point where the borders of all three South
Caucasus countries meet, Sadakhlo has long been the site of a major
wholesale market.
Because of the unsolved Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, there are no
direct trade links between Azerbaijan and Armenia. But residents from
both countries come to Sadakhlo to trade goods, including products
manufactured in Turkey and Iran.
Armenian authorities have complained that Sadakhlo has become a major
contraband center and that the giant open-air market there should be
closed. But regional experts believe Sadakhlo’s closure would be an
unpopular move, since it is one of the main sources of goods for
ordinary people in the region.
International experts believe a substantial amount of Afghan-produced
narcotics meant for European markets transit through Sadakhlo and Red
Bridge.
Other major smuggling routes are believed to pass through Georgia’s
separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
The Georgian Interior Ministry today said it has sent police
reinforcements into the South Ossetian area, which is formally under
the control of Russian peacekeepers.
Interior Minister Giorgi Baramidze explained the move today in
comments to reporters. He said the Russian Army general in charge of
South Ossetia’s peacekeeping operations had ordered the dismantling
of Georgian police checkpoints established there only last month.
Nabzdorov has denied any plans to remove Georgian checkpoints, saying
such a decision can be made only after consultations with Tbilisi.
South Ossetia claims these checkpoints represent a threat to its
security and testify to Georgia’s eagerness to impose an economic
blockade on the region, which it hopes to reclaim as part of its
territory.
Meanwhile, Baramidze today warned that Georgia would not hesitate to
use force to defend its interests.
“We are not planning to attack anyone. We’re only fighting
smugglers,” Baramidze said. “If smugglers want to fight us with bare
fists, we will respond in kind. But if they want to use their
weapons, we will respond with fire. We are here to defend the
interests of the Georgian government.”
Also today, Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania said that the
decision to set up police checkpoints in the villages of Tkviavi,
Pkhvenisi, Nikozi, and Eredvi has helped cut off the main smuggling
route from Vladikavkaz, the capital of Russia’s Northern Ossetia
republic.
Zhvania also said any attempt at preventing his government from
fighting illegal trade through South Ossetia would be “fruitless.”

Europe’s verbiage
Kavkaz Center, Turkey
May 31 2004
Former students of Communist party schools in the USSR used to tell
me how during classes teachers would make students polish the right
answers to provocative questions by «mudslingers and falsifiers of
the Soviet reality». Thus, this is the kind of answer that was
supposed to be given to the question «Why in the West there is a
multiparty system, but in USSR only one political party is allowed?»:
«In 1917 our people recognized the Communist Party as the only
people’s party and the vanguard that meets the expectations of the
Soviet people… etc». Then the teachers would offer to quote Lenin,
something like, «Doctrine of Marx is all-powerful because it is
true!»
There are less and less masters of speech of days bygone remaining.
But in Europe there is one man who is still a real master of verbal
lechery, even though he did not graduate from a Soviet party school.
His name is Alvaro Gil-Robles and he works as «Council of Europe’s
Commissioner for Human Rights».
The times are gone, when Chechen refugees would apply their ears to
radios and tell each other the news about another session, meeting,
assembly or conference of international officials, who are allegedly
concerned about violations of human rights in Chechnya.
Alvaro Gil-Robles has been an old participant in all these European
get-togethers. This character with habits of an Armenian shoemaker
from the shop that used to be located between a rifle-range and the
main building of Chechen-Ingushetian State University in prewar
Grozny (now Jokhar, capital of Chechnya) has been playing the role of
a good cop all of this time.
The picture cleared up after his first visits to Russia, when he
preferred to be receiving the reports about things happening in
Chechnya not at the scene of the events, but from the mouth of
Sultygov or Rogozin instead. So, his next visit to Moscow would have
remained unnoticed by those who really need their rights defended,
had it not been for the enthusiasm of Russian foreign minister
Lavrov, who said after the meeting with the EU commissioner:
«We are stating that the Chechen subject is gradually being removed
from the European agenda».
This really is the news, but only for those who have still been
thinking that the Chechen subject was on the European agenda in the
first place. Sure, it was there… just to make it look nice. Civilized
Europe, you know. It requires a status. But this subject is standing
still, just like it has been. And no one is going to get it moving…
so far.
But the European commissioner is still called the «Human Rights
Commissioner», and the status implies being civilized, and this is
why he could not share Russian minister’s optimism so readily. So, in
response he came up with something like an objection to such
optimism, worthy of a graduate of Higher School of Communist Party of
the Soviet Union”:
«PACE members may have legitimate concerns about the situation with
human rights in Chechnya».
Sure, it would be inadmissible for the Russian side to deprive PACE
members of the right to have ‘legitimate concerns’ about the
situation in Chechnya. So, that’s what Russia was encroaching on.
Chechens were naive enough to wait that the four years of concern
would sometime develop into some semblance of an outrage over the
slaughter of 250 thousand European people, — there was nothing more
to be counting on. But it all turned out to be much more complicated,
and Europe has been fighting with Russia all of this time just for
the right to have a ‘legitimate concern’ (!).
Only Doctors Without Borders (MSF) can compete with Robles by the
degree of hypocrisy. Not too long ago they mentioned some pragmatism
(!), because of which they would not press charges against the
Russian side for kidnapping their employee, while they had all direct
evidence on hand. But at the same time they cut the assistance to
Chechen refugees and demanded that the FSB releases their colleague.
All right, let’s leave these shows for theatrical critics to delve
in.
Today you have to be a complete idiot to believe in the fairytale
about evil Putin and good Europeans who cannot find the way to deal
with him. Putin is a puppet, who will not take a single step without
a permission from puppeteers. Only for mentioning the Chechen subject
(anything more is out of the question), Russia is conceding, losing
and has already lost so many positions that even an army outnumbering
the Chechen Army hundreds of times could not have been able to seize
from it.
Even if Putin defeated the Chechens in the war, which Moscow is still
paying the price for, it would still have been a plain defeat for
Moscow. But Putin is not getting even that kind of victory on a tiny
piece of Chechen land. After paying such a high price and after
getting a license for genocide from Europe, Putin is still going mad
from being unable to make his plans come true. And this is exactly
why his face changes like he was just taken out of an outhouse, when
Chechnya is being mentioned.
This is what Russian writer Lev Gunin wrote about the problem of
nations under genocide:
«This is the way this world was made: so that the criticism of one
monster stained with blood of innocent victims reaches the people,
you have to appeal to a similar monster, who would be happy to
overthrow the first one».
But for the Chechen nation or for any other Muslim nation there is no
UN with its human rights activists, or even some kind of a monster,
whom Chechens could ask for help if they wanted to. The difference
between the situation described by Gunin and today’s realities is
that the very process of globalization promotes mergers of all sorts
of monsters into one monster.
The best way out of this situation is not to be counting on any
protectors, however strong they would seem in this world. The best
protection for the Muslims is the protection from the Most High. Only
complete assurance in this protection and accordingly, perseverance
in compliance with His orders gives Muslims the power to resist, and
it gives them the spirit, the courage and the faith in victory.
Aset Ismailova,
for Kavkaz-Center

LAW-ENFORCEMENT OFFENDERS TO SERVE TERMS IN RENOVATED PRISON
ArmenPress
May 31 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS: Some 60 former employees of
law-enforcement bodies, serving prison terms for various offences
will move in July into a new correction facility, complying with
international standards.
The Vardashen prison located in Yerevan outskirts that will take
in the convicts is being now reconstructed as part of a program of
Armenian judiciary system reformation. The major repair, started in
2003 September is expected to be over in July 2004.
Varuzhan Melkonian, head of a justice ministry department, supervising
prison facilities, told Armenpress that the Vardashen prison is
going to be the first one in its kind correction facility in Armenia,
meeting all international requirements.
He said the facility will be of so-called “half–open” type meaning
that prison cells will have wooden doors instead of iron ones and
will be shut only for the night. It will also have a gymnasium and
will be furnished with new furniture. The new prison is expected to
accommodate some 150 inmates.

DEFENSE MINISTRY TO HAVE OWN THINK TANK
ArmenPress
May 31 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS: The official start to the construction
of the National Institute for Strategic Researches, affiliated with
Armenian defense ministry, was held today. The new establishment will
carry the name of Drastamat Kanayan, a prominent Armenian military
leader.
Addressing the present, defense minister Serzh Sarkisian said the
idea to build such an establishment ripened after Kanayan’s relatives,
living in the USA, arrived in Armenia to propose to build the institute
on funds they were going to raise.
Sarkisian said the idea was welcomed, “as being located in a
complicated geo-political environment Armenia did not have for
centuries opportunities to conduct national policy and build supporting
establishments.” He said having in mind Armenia’s ongoing integration
with international organizations, its boosting relations with Russia
and the USA, the need of such an establishment is growing day by day.
According to the defense minister, the primary goal of the new
institute will be to provide divisions of the national security
council, in the first place the defense ministry, with qualified
consulting, conducting of special researches and training of
personnel. A total of $600,000 were raised to build the new think-tank.

MILLENNIUM CHALLENGES ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE OFFICER ARRIVES IN ARMENIA
ArmenPress
May 31 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS: Armenian prime minister Andranik Margarian
received today, Paul Applegarth, a senior US official, who heads the
executive committee for supervising the Millennium Challenges Account
(MCA) program of $1 billion this year as part of a new U.S. policy
to help some countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the former
Soviet Union to continue their political and economic reforms. The
MCA was unveiled by President George W. Bush in 2002. Armenia is among
16 developing countries selected by the United States to benefit from
the program.
Only two former Soviet republics, Armenia and neighboring Georgia,
were picked by the board administering the MCA. The other chosen states
are Benin, Cape Verde, Ghana, Lesotho, Madagascar, Mali, Mozambique,
Senegal, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Vanuatu, Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua.
Applegarth will also mee with President Kocharian, government
officials, and with representatives of other sectors of Armenian
society, including the media, NGOs, and the business sector. Their
visit has a two-fold purpose: to acquaint themselves with the current
situation in Armenia, and to inform the various sectors in Armenia
about the Millennium Challenge Account (MCA). Paul Applegarth, MCC CEO,
says that although the government of an MCC-eligible country will
eventually be responsible for submitting a project proposal for an
MCA compact to the MCC, the proposal will also be evaluated for its
“inclusiveness,” among other criteria. “Inclusiveness” in this case
means that the proposal is the result of wide discussions among the
sectors of society, leading to consensus on the top priorities for
promoting development in a country.
According to some reports, the Armenian government will request $40
million for the current U.S. fiscal year which ends on September 30,
to spend the money on improving education standards, healthcare and
water supplies.

AZERI DEFENSE MINISTER REFUTES REPORTS ABOUT ARMENIAN PRESENCE IN
GABALA RADAR STATION
ArmenPress
May 31 2004
BAKU, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS: Azerbaijani defense minister Safar Abiyev has
officially dismissed media ruckus that Russian citizens of Armenian
origin were serving at Gabala Radar Station, leased by Russia in
Azerbaijan. The minister said 35 Armenians, ostensibly serving at the
station, are in fact Ukrainians and Udins (a Caucasian ethnic group
speaking a language of their own and representing the remnant of a
very early Christian community in Azerbaijan that traces its roots
back to the 4th century Caucasus Albanian Church) whose surnames end
in “yan”, like those of Armenians. Over the centuries, the Udins
have been equated with Armenians but, in reality, they are one of
the distinct ethnic groups.
The Gabala radar station has a significant place in the Russian
Federation’s air defense and early warning systems. The station is
also directly linked to the “nuclear suitcase” of the president.
Gabala Radar Station, which was installed to determine the ballistics
missiles between continents, has the capacity to determine every move
in the southern hemisphere.

ARMENIA VERSUS REST OF WORLD CHESS TOURNAMENT TO TAKE PLACE IN MOSCOW
ArmenPress
May 31 2004
YEREVAN, MAY 31, ARMENPRESS: The Russian capital of Moscow will host
a celebration from June 10-16 of the 75th anniversary of the birth
of the late Armenian world champion Tigran Petrosian. The “Armenia
v Rest of the World” six-player team tournament will see each player
face all members of the opposing team.
The Armenian team will consist of three Armenians; Vladimir Hakobian,
Smbat Lputian and Rafael Vahanian and three players with Armenian
connections; Garry Kasparov, whose mother is Armenian, world title
challenger Peter Leko, whose wife is Armenian, and Boris Gelfand,
who studied under Tigran Petrosian.
The Rest of the World team is likely to include Vishy Anand, Michael
Adams, Peter Svidler and Loek Van Wely.

Ottawa Citizen
May 31, 2004 Monday Final Edition
Montreal school bombing sparks inter-faith concert for peace:
Synagogue chooses to ‘do something practical’;
will raise money for books
by Bob Harvey
Ottawa faith groups hope to sow a little more peace in the world.
On Sunday at 7 p.m., Jews, Mormons, Roman Catholics, Armenian
Christians, Hindus and Muslims will join in a Concert for Peace at
the Beth Shalom Synagogue on Chapel Street.
Daniel Benlolo, the cantor at Beth Shalom, and the event’s
co-chairman, said that after the fire-bombing of Montreal’s United
Talmud Torah School on April 5, “we decided we wanted to do something
practical.”
Some of the money raised by the concert will go toward buying books
to replace those destroyed in the school library, and the rest will
be doled out by the participating groups to any project that might
help make peace.
Mr. Benlolo said “people think all Jews and all Arabs are the same,
and we’re trying to prove otherwise. We hope people will stop and say
there are some good people in the world.”
A note found at the scene of the fire-bombing linked it to Israel’s
killing of the founder of Hamas, a Palestinian resistance movement.
Mr. Benlolo said that when he met Palestinians, he sang his songs,
and the Palestinians sang theirs. “That way, camaraderie was
established.”
He said it is not just the Middle East that faces conflict today.
“We’ve learned that there is terrorism in cities all over the world.”
Mr. Benlolo said the concert will be strictly entertainment and “is
not going to make a huge difference in the world, but it is
definitely going to make a difference to some people, and these
people are going to be speaking about it to other people.”
The choirs, the musicians and the synagogue are waiving any payment,
and even the synagogue’s custodian is working for free.
Tickets for the peace concert and the dessert reception that follows
are $10. The synagogue’s auditorium has 740 seats, and there are only
125 seats still left. But Mr. Benlolo says that, if necessary, he
will open the doors to the synagogue and provide more seats.
Tickets can be obtained from the participating groups: the Jewish
community at 789-3501; the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, 832-0101; the Roman Catholic Cathedral at 241-7496; the
Diocese of the Armenian Church of Canada, at 224-8117; the Hindu
Temple at 822-1531; and the Ottawa Muslim Association, 722-8763.

Armavir unit of Russian Border Troops marks 80th jubilee
By Tigran Liloyan
ITAR-TASS News Agency
May 30, 2004 Sunday
ARMAVIR (Armenia), May 30 – The Armavir unit of the Russian Border
Troops, which is stationed on the Armenian-Turkish frontier, is
celebrating the 80th jubilee.
The 26th separate border battalion was formed on the basis of the 2nd
division of the Red Army after the Soviet regime had been established
in Armenia. The battalion was transformed into a border unit on May
25, 1924. The unit command was moved to Yerevan, Artashat and later
on to Oktemberyan (currently Armavir).
Border unit commander Col. Sergei Kuklin said they had detained 904
border trespassers since 1943. Four Heroes of the Soviet Union served
with the unit.
The Armavir unit “has always been a school of courage, patriotism
and internationalism,” Commander of the Armenian Border Troops Col.
Vyacheslav Voksanyan said. Head of the Armavir regional administration
Albert Geroyan said that the local residents and authorities are
actively cooperating with Russian border guards. Local businessmen
sponsor the border unit.
Yerevan regards the presence of Russian border guards and a Russian
military base in Armenia as an important component of the national
security.

Sitting in one’s ‘phew’
Trinidad & Tobago Express, Trinidad and Tobago
June 1 2004
Going back to one’s school days and scrolling through the circuitry
of the hippocampus I am sure that some will recall their first risqué
jokes. There were several “Confucius says” jokes, mostly unprintable,
but the one that comes to mind with the degrading and abusive Iraqi
torture scenes is-“Confucius says man who breaks wind in church must
sit in his own ‘phew'”.
Whatever the excuses and apologies, and the ultimate reality, there
is no doubt that Bush and his cronies have produced a really massive
silent and deadly. So much for freedom and democracy, human rights,
American values and un-American behaviour, as if humanity can ever
forget the various atrocities of past United States governments.
Slavery? Indian wars? Wounded Knee? Haiti? Tokyo? Hiroshima? My Lai?
Agent Orange? Hanoi? These are integral and defining aspects of
American history. But in all fairness to them there have been many
comparable atrocities elsewhere. The genocide of the Armenians? The
Holocaust? The Warsaw ghetto? Lidice? Oradour sur Glane? Cologne?
Dresden? The Gulag? Apartheid? Laos? Sabra? Shatila? Rwanda? And now
the Vatican condemns the torture in Iraq! Really! Kevin Baldeosingh
can thank his lucky stars that he lives today not then when the
Vatican prevailed.
The thing is that victors and the more powerful in conflicts or wars
supposedly never commit atrocities, only the conquered. But we should
not be too hard on the United States Ambassador. He is, after all,
only doing what his employer requires of him. The only possibility
of faulting him is that unlike all the other heads of missions who
are discrete in what they say publicly, he feels that he is free to
say anything to the public, hence my column “Sensitivity Americana”.
Possibly he thinks that as citizens of an American satellite client
state, most citizens will conform. Possibly also he considers us no
more than an energy source for the US economy. He of course has a
choice. Conform and he holds the job. Dissent and he is recalled. His
public utterances are what Washington directs. He could continue to
project “American values”. This however might have little influence
of the views of many thinking citizens who will remember the history
of the USA, its violence, its gun obsession, its drug culture, its
support of right wing dictators and interventions in many countries
in the western hemisphere.
My guess is that he will simply continue to conform as all our
Government Senator Ministers opt to do. It continues to perplex many
however that he did not focus on one of the towering strengths of
the American way-its vibrant media, a real fourth estate. It was a
pair of military personnel with consciences and the American media
that exposed the horror and butchery of My Lai, something that was
known about at the highest levels, even one holding office today,
and something that was pardoned by a Republican president. After all
the victims were merely gooks like the lynched blacks of Alabama or
slaughtered Indians at Wounded Knee.
Having written over 100 columns for the Express over the past two
years or so I have on occasion expressed comments that may have
been critical of both the Panday and Manning administrations and of
other parts of the state apparatus. The criticisms have been on the
nature of the policies of these administrations but I have tried
to be constructive. Does that make me anti-Trinidadian”? Anti-UNC?
Anti-PNM? Indeed if anyone reads this column at the High Commission
in London they may be reminded that a member of the Commission made
the observation about me to my brother at a function in far off
Aberdeen-“your brother is a great patriot”!
Possibly this was only being diplomatic but I do in fact care for the
citizens of this country and for future generations and in any thing
that I write I try to be constructive. If anything most columnists and
leader writers aim at following in the traditions of the independent
minds who have written over the decades in the quality press of the
United States of America and the United Kingdom, countries in whose
shadows we live. Columns may be anti-foreign policy without being
anti-people. If any thing it is simply being anti-imperialism and
pro-Trinidad and Tobago and its interests as a democratic sovereign
nation with constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression and
the press.
Much of what is wrong in the USA has come to light from a vibrant media
in that country. Indeed we would not have known of the photographs
of the tortured Iraqis except for the CBS, the New Yorker and the
Washington Post.
Torture and humiliation is not exactly new to human society as
there is an extensive written and pictorial record of its use in
conflicts between cultures, the word culture being used in its broad
not Trinidadian sense. It has been done in the name of God, revenge,
self-defence, manifest destiny, conquest, colonialism, lebensraum,
trade or whatever have you. And now we have torture and humiliation
of Iraqi prisoners. These by any interpretation are war crimes and
no amount of platitudes about American values, or the America I know,
or an isolated incident not reflecting all those brave, motivated and
highly trained military personnel serving their country “in harm’s way”
of which we are proud.
Much is now being made of the beheading of an unfortunate
American entrepreneur or contractor. Should the photographic
image of an atrocity be worse than an un-photographed un-recorded
atrocity? Does anyone really know of the numbers of un-photographed
torture incidents? But more important is the fact that the torture
has deflected attention from the greater abuse of the terminal
collateralisation of the uncounted hundreds or thousands of innocent
Iraqis. Are not the Iraqis in harm’s way? Especially the young and
innocent? More of them seem to have been killed. An eight-year old
girl disembowelled by a single bullet? And Rumsfeld is proud of his
occupying forces.
Again, we are dealing with a clash of cultures, and one that is
in essence no different from previous clashes over the past ten
millennia. Technologies may differ but in all there will be torture,
humiliation and death and destruction. The victors project themselves
as God fearing champions for freedom and democracy as opposed to
monsters, brutal terrorists and murderers. There are many dimensions to
the current ongoing war in Iraq. One of these is the imbalance between
the technologies available. The side with the weaker technology and
resources will do every thing to resist. But again while we decry the
American torture and abuse of their prisoners and while some praise
Amnesty International for blowing the gaff on them, perhaps we might
reflect on the torture that we inflict on the prison population in
Trinidad and Tobago. Torture by neglect can be as dehumanising as
torture with intent, in the same way that there is no difference
between being beheaded by a hand applied sword, a hand-triggered
rocket or artillery shell.
We like our American masters do not like to see reality. Does anyone
really believe that our media would ever be allowed freedom to film
the reality of the conditions in the Royal Jail described by an
officer of Amnesty International? We too are sitting in our own “phew”.