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By Carol Williams |
Victims and police point to a home-grown radical Muslim gang that sought to topple the government in 1990 and has since built a lucrative criminal empire. U.S. intelligence operatives are believed to be watching the militants of Jamaat al Muslimeen for signs that they are linked to global terrorist networks such as Al Qaeda.
Abductions targeting the prosperous and politically influential have evoked comparison to the Abu Sayyaf guerrillas, whose kidnappings in the Philippines and Malaysia have chilled business at island resorts in those Pacific countries. They have also instilled fear in this country, the Caribbean's most dynamic economy, that visitors and foreign investors could begin looking elsewhere.
The relatively small and obscure Jamaat al Muslimeen sparked the kidnapping wave that flared up about two years ago, but authorities see an even more troubling copycat phenomenon. Amateur crooks and street kids are getting into the act, inspired by the ransom paid by relatives who may fear the police as much as the abductors.
Kidnapping has been on the rise throughout the Caribbean and Latin America, but it has soared in Trinidad. In 2001, this country of 1.2 million had fewer than 10 kidnappings. In 2002, the number was 29. In the last couple of years, the figure has been about 150.
Police say most kidnappings are instances of gangland score-settling or drug dealings gone wrong, an explanation that serves to defuse public anger and convince honest citizens that they run little risk of becoming targets.
The victims are primarily Indians, who make up 40% of the population and tend to be more affluent than blacks, who compose a similar proportion. They contend that the kidnappings are being fueled by police corruption, government complicity, racism and an attitude that most victims had it coming.
Still missing six months after his June 21 abduction, 11-year-old Vijay Persad has become a symbol for the plight of ordinary Trinis caught up in the violence. "People say they're after us. The black community doesn't give us support. They are scared of these people," Ragkumar Persad, 38, says of his neighbors' indifference to his family tragedy and Jamaat al Muslimeen.
Saran Kissoondan, whose family paid $167,000 to free him last year, accuses the police of being in league with organized crime.
"The criminals were getting information from the police. I could hear their conversations," Kissoondan recalled of the 18 days he spent handcuffed and blindfolded in a dirt-floor shack, listening to his captors talking on their cellphones. "The police officer handling my matter was advising the criminals not to let me go [for a lesser ransom]. The police were telling them my family could pay more."
Kissoondan, owner of a car dealership and brother of one of the country's most successful restaurateurs, identified two of his captors, who were arrested shortly after his release. One of the men, a member of Jamaat al Muslimeen, agreed to testify against the crime masterminds of the group and was put under police protection. Before he could testify, however, the witness' body was found in a lake, shot, wrapped in plastic and weighted with rocks. All charges were dropped against the rest of the suspects.
"Since the PNM came to power, kidnapping of Indian people has come alive," Kissoondan said, referring to the ruling People's National Movement and Prime Minister Patrick Manning. "There's nothing and nobody to stop it. The police know who the main kidnappers in Trinidad are, but they are their associates so they will do nothing."