T'DAD PM LAMENTS CRIME WAVE

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Faced with a spiralling problem of murder
and kidnappings, Trinidad and Tobago's prime minister, Patrick
Manning, said yesterday that curbing crime was his government's
biggest challenge and said that the elimination of poverty and
under-development would be critical to its solution.

Trinidad and Tobago, the only significant oil and gas producer in the
Caribbean Community, is among the richest member-state of Caricom, a
grouping of regional territories, which yesterday launched a single
market as part of a move towards a seamless regional economy.

But in recent years, Trinidad and Tobago has been plagued by a wave
of murder and kidnappings for ransom.

Murders reached a record 389 last year, while there were 60
kidnappings - about double the number for 2004.

While its murder rate of about 39 per 100,000 places it, in per
capita terms, a little over a third lower than Jamaica's,
Trinidadians are concerned about a crime problem similar in scope to
this country and Manning and his People's National Movement (PNM)
administration has been under pressure to find solutions. There were
more than 1,600 homicides in Jamaica in 2005.

In his New Year's speech to the country yesterday, Manning conceded
the problem and largely blamed the narcotics trade for the surge of
killings.

"The drug trade and its turf wars have pushed the murder rate to a
very high level," Manning said in the speech, which aired on
television and radio. "We continue to be faced with the problem of
kidnapping by some evil predators in our midst."

Manning said government was taking steps to deal with crime,
including improving law enforcement efficiency.

"Our fight against crime also involves the pursuit of a social agenda
that seeks to eliminate poverty and underdevelopment," he said.

Earlier in the decade the Trinidadians hired former Jamaican police
chief, Col Trevor MacMillan - recently named by the Jamaica Labour
Party to plan the Opposition's anti-crime programme to be implemented
should the party come to power in the next election - to a task
force to come up with plans for a reform of the country's police
force and other anti-crime initiatives. But it was not clear how much
of that group's programme was implemented.

However, late last year Manning announced that he called on America's
Federal Bureau of Investigation to help to reorganise the Trinidadian
constabulary and American officials have visited the country in that
regard.

Nonetheless, the main opposition party, the United National Congress,
criticised Manning's government, saying that since it took office,
there have been more than 1,000 homicides and kidnappings for ransom
has become endemic.

"So far, every initiative of the Manning administration to deal with
crime has failed," said Opposition leader Basdeo Panday.

Panday said the crime wave, particularly kidnappings, has placed the
business community under strain and near siege. Many business
families have opted to migrate or at least, to send their children
away, he said.

The twin-island nation in the southeast Caribbean Sea is home to
about one million people.