Social worker and former People's Partnership activist, Verna St Rose-Greaves has broken her silence on moves by the Government to amend the Constitution to allow for the resumption of hangings in T&T.
St Rose-Greaves, in an interview with the T&T Guardian yesterday, said last Friday's announcement of fresh moves to execute condemned murderers was "perhaps to take attention away from the pending state of emergency because my sense is that a state of emergency is coming, which is a whole other drama that I don't know that the population is prepared to deal with."
St Rose-Greaves, who indicated she initially didn't want to speak about the move, said her change of heart was triggered by a violent attack on her on the streets on Monday. She said she was assaulted by a citizen who was in support of the resumption of hangings in T&T. "Yesterday a man actually found himself pointing a finger and his hand in my face. All of this is frightening, especially as so many people are doing this in the name of God." She said she suspected that "before long somebody is going to dare to put their hands on me and that’s not something that I would want to happen. That would be very unfortunate."
St Rose-Greaves said previously attempts were made to "run me off the road" because of her known objections to the imposition of the death penalty. She said the PP Government must be very careful because "when you start whipping up that kind of frenzy in people (whose expectations are already high) and when you talk about the Constitution amendment and then you don’t deliver... because I suspect there is not going to be delivery, this thing is not going to happen and at the same time there are other things we need to look at that we are not doing."
St Rose-Greaves said there remained the need for "ongoing, informed and sustained debate on this issue. We need to talk about the plan, the pain, the anger and victim support." She said she was aware of the pain people felt when their loved ones were murdered. "And unless we are prepared to sit down in calm and with respect and address those issues, we’re heading for more trouble," she warned. St Rose-Greaves said all politicians in T&T were guilty of embracing the criminal element to secure political power.
"They walk with us, they're our friends and rather than take the opportunity to move them away from that kind of lifestyle, we hold on to them so that we could get power and then, as soon as it becomes convenient, or we become afraid of them because they are now making demands that we can't meet, we start to talk about hanging and getting rid of them," she added. St Rose-Greaves said the murder rate escalated every time there was talk about the resumption of hangings "because you’re feeding something that you cannot control.
"So we have to really consider the things that we are saying, the things that we are doing, the ways that we are saying it and the people that we are doing it to. "The death penalty is about taking away our humanity," she insisted. She added that while many countries have either abolished the death penalty or were moving to abolish it "we are prepared to treat with the end. We are not prepared to go to the root." St Rose-Greaves said the crime problem did not escalate overnight and it would not be solved overnight by the imposition of hangings.
In response to a claim by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar that millions have been spent on crime to no avail, she said that was so because it was not spent on the right remedies. She said: "We do not have the interlocking devices that we need. We do not have the database and the monitoring and evaluation systems that would measure where the gains, losses were and where the challenges were." St Rose Greaves said part of the solution to the problem involved working with children to ensure the right values were instilled in them from young.
She listed other remedies:
•Address the sexuality issue in the country;
• Teach human rights awareness;
•Set up drug interdiction centres;
• Establish intervention centres for families; and,
•Develop safe and proper child care measures.
Source: The Guardian, January 19, 2011
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