Leonardo Blair, Enterprise Reporter
Trinidadian police patrol Frederick Street in Port-of-Spain, just chains away from the Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet in the capital's Independence Square. - PHOTO BY LEONARDO BLAIR
PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad
A BOMBING every month for the last four months, injuring scores of Trinidadians in the heart of the nation's capital, Port-of-Spain, is not enough to force this stoic crowd into running scared.
Down the busy Frederick Street in the heart of Port-of-Spain, then smack in the middle of Independence Square, is a Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) restaurant packed with hungry 'Trinis' ordering all kinds of trademark chicken meals.
There are at least four security guards milling around inside and a mobile police post just outside in the square. It's hard to believe that just over a month ago several persons were injured in a bomb blast, similar to the one that rocked a popular bar called Smokey and Bunty's last Friday in St. James, not so far away. Local news reports say some 14 people were injured in the bomb blast at Smokey and Bunty's. But at the Independence Square KFC and at Smokey and Bunty's, life is as fresh and untroubled as ever. The bombings seem like much ado about nothing to Cheryl, assistant manager of the KFC restaurant.
"I don't really got much to say because there ain't much different. People are coming and going as usual, there has been no change in business (since the bombing)," she said.
Like the British, after their recent experience with the London bomb blasts which killed several people, the Trinis are hounding to find the culprit threatening to sully their good name in the Region. "We are a wealthy nation," is the phrase on almost everybody's lips, even if they are not tasting the flavour of economic prosperity. Unemployment is the lowest it has ever been in the nation's history and there are want ads, it seems, lining every other store window along Frederick Street. Who would want to destroy this image? No one, and that's why, while the rest of the region seems to be making much of it, most Trinidadians seem to pretend it never happened.
DAILY BUSINESS
"Most people are still going about their daily business, this is a new thing for us, up to now we are not seeing a cause," said Constable Evrol Williams of the Trinidad Police.
That's why some people are now even upset with Prime Minister Patrick Manning's statement, in Trinidad's House of Representatives on Monday evening, that he had information on who was behind the attack but not enough evidence to arrest them.
"The Government of Trinidad and Tobago at this time has a good idea of who 'Mr. Big' is in this matter (bombings)," Mr. Manning was quoted as saying in the local press.
But having a good idea, he further explained was not enough to go out and make an arrest. His constituents, however, find his efforts at bringing the problem to an end laughable.
"I find this is a stupid piece of confirmation. He (Manning) shouldn't talk like that," said George Phillips, a retired labour supervisor.
