By Sir Ronald Sanders
Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
I have no idea whether the group of four Guyanese and Trinidad nationals who are under arrest for allegedly plotting to blow up a fuel pipe line serving JFK Airport in New York are guilty or not.
My ignorance is the same as everyone else’s bar none. And, like every other person in the world, they should be presumed to be innocent unless proven guilty.
The group of men are guilty of something, and that something is crass stupidity.
Judging from the snippets of recordings that have been publicized, some of them obviously fantasized about creating an awful incident at JFK if it worked. That fantasizing was downright stupid. And unfortunately, Guyanese, Trinidadians and others from the Caribbean will pay the price when visiting the US and elsewhere.
The people who will pay the highest price are genuine business people, particularly those who are Muslims, or have Muslim-sounding names, or just look as if they could be Muslim.
It is left to be seen whether the fantasizing by the four was promoted by over use of hallucinatory drugs, the crazy notion that their half-baked ideas could be marketed to a real terrorist group, or some real intent.
Two things are perfectly clear: First, these guys are not wild-eyed, young bombers motivated by the prospect of dying for a cause. They are all close to their sixties. Second, they were in the words of the Trinidad parlance “scrunting”. In other words, they had little money and were incapable of financing an operation such as the one allegedly contemplated for JFK Airport in New York.
It stands to reason that they would have had to be the pawns of a bigger, well-resourced group such as al Qaeda. But, the US experts say they were not. And, attempts to tie them to the one so-called Muslim group in the Caribbean with a link to terror, the Jamaat al Muslimeen, has so far lacked credibility. Certainly the leader of this controversial group has denied any connection to them.
They have done a severe disservice to Guyana, Trinidad and the wider Caribbean. But, more especially, they have hurt Muslim businessmen who seek to do business in the US and other places. Those persons will be checked and double checked and may even be denied visitor’s visas to the US, Canada, the UK and elsewhere because they are Muslim and from Guyana and Trinidad.
And, there is no pretending that there is not profiling of this kind by immigration and security authorities. There is. Now, it will get worse.
Beyond the effect on all Guyanese and Trinidadian travelers but Muslim businessmen especially, there is also the effect that this much publicized “plot to blow up JFK Airport by a terrorist group” will have on Caribbean tourism.
The headlines in newspapers and the pictures on worldwide television by media that enjoyed a feeding frenzy certainly put a beating on Caribbean tourism. Unfortunately, there will be tourists who will think twice now about holidaying in the Caribbean.
The situation was not helped by statements such as the one reportedly made by New York Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly that referred to “a potential Caribbean threat”. Fuel was added to the fire when a former CIA terrorism expert, Mike Ackerman, said that “Caribbean natives” have been linked to terrorism. There were two persons of Caribbean origin linked to incidents in the UK. The number would rise to three if the so-called “shoe bomber” is added to the list. But, now all of a sudden, the Caribbean becomes some sort of incubator for terrorism.
The truth is that no one regrets this development more than the people of the Caribbean, particularly Trinidad and Guyana. The last thing the region wants is to be seen as anything but a stable, peaceful area spiced up by interesting local politics, regional rivalry, and vibrant intellectual capacity. Certainly, Caribbean people prefer a fete to a fight, and a “jump up” to a blow up.
It is left to be seen whether this small group of Trinidadians and Guyanese had any real intent to blow up fuel pipelines to JFK Airport. What is certain is that they were stupid to even hallucinate about it, and Caribbean business and tourism may pay a price for their stupidity unless the media and those in authority in the US and the Caribbean make it crystal clear that the region should not be judged by it.
It would be good to see such a declaration come out of the US-Caribbean encounter between President Bush and Caribbean heads of government in a few days time.
