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Carnival, Cocaine & Kidnap
How a CPU course on sensitive reporting found a case study that was all too real
By Simon Rogers
The story began in Trinidad last
December when Vindra Naipaul-
Coolman drove home from work,
having dismissed her bodyguards.
The 51-year-old high-profile CEO
of supermarket chain Xtra turned into
her driveway in a Chaguanas suburb at
9.15pm. She probably did not notice the
gold Nissan Almera blocking the gate
behind her until, according to witnesses,
two men jumped out firing a pistol at her
car. She shouted "you don't scare me"
before one of them hit her in the face
with a gun and dragged her out. Five
bloody teeth were left on the driveway
as they sped off. The Nissan was found
abandoned nearby.
The island, which thought itself numb
to crime, is stunned. Supermarket workers
march, pleading for her safe release
while religious organisations pray for her
safety. Her family has paid TT$1,350,000
(£108,000), half the ransom demand.
And, three months after the event, she is
still missing.
Trinidad's police reported around 245
kidnappings last year, a 100% increase
on five years ago. While the vast majority
are known as "quickie kidnappings"
where the victim is taken to a cashpoint,
over 50 were followed by ransom
demands. Many believe the real total is
underreported, and the issue has propelled
the twin island republic up the
international league table of crime
hotspots. And as it gears up for Carnival,
the biggest in the Caribbean, many are
asking if the mysterious disappearance
of the country's most high-profile businesswomen
will spoil the party.
The situation formed the central field
trip in a recent CPU course: "social
responsibility and news sense", which
brought together journalists from all over
the region and looked at how to report
on sensitive situations. It provided a
graphic example of what can happen
when trust breaks down and tensions
become inflamed.
Lange Park, where Naipaul-Coolman
lives, is a pleasant middle-class area on
the edge of Chaguanas. Large houses
swathed in bougainvillea sit around a
bandstand park, but behind the elegant
wrought iron gates rottweilers patrol
restlessly and residents talk of feeling
under siege. It is a predominantly Indo-
Trinidadian area, where locals distrust
the predominantly Afro-Trinidadian police
force and hire their own security company
to patrol the area at night.
It has seen seven kidnappings and five
attempted kidnappings in recent months.
Resident Kamal Singh's wife was getting
into her SUV last year when two men
jumped in and beat her up. She was tied
up and dumped, alive but shaken up.
"These people create fear in our hearts,
they bully us," she says.
Residents association president Bobby
Sheppard is similarly angry. "I have had
four cars taken from me at the point of a
gun," he says. On one occasion he was
shot in the leg. And the media appears
widely distrusted here. Some residents
claimed this was the first time that journalists
had visited their area.
Trinidad is a country suddenly and
unexpectedly wealthy as record oil
prices fuel the resource-rich island's
economic boom. The capital, Port of
Spain, echoes to the sound of construction
work as new hotels and office
blocks shoot up along a regenerating
waterfront clogged with traffic. Unlike its
sister Tobago, the island is fiercely unreliant
on tourism despite a stunning
coastline and golden beaches. But, with
the investment of BP and British Gas
among others, doesn't need to be as
GDP grows and inflation stays low.
However, like many places in the
Caribbean, the island is suffering from a
vicious crime surge. The exceptionally
high rate of murders per head of population
in Trinidad and its more peaceful sister
island of Tobago is startling. At about
30 per 100,000 inhabitants it is 19
times the rate in England and Wales and
16 times the rate in Canada. The island
has the death penalty, but lawyers say
the chances of being caught are so low
it serves no deterrent purpose.
Politics here have become more ethnically
divided between the evenly split
residents of African and Indian descent.
More surprisingly for Trinidadians is that
they find themselves enviously eyeing
falling crime rates in their previously
troubled neighbour Guyana, where
recent elections passed peacefully. "That
we are slipping down a precipice is evident;
finding the rope of hope is the
mystery we seem unable to solve,"
wrote a columnist in the Express here.
Amidst the controversy, Suruj Rambachan
- mayor of Chaguanas
and radio talkshow host - is anxious
to promote his central city, which
has grown in 30 years to become one
of the most populous in Trinidad. He
talks glowingly of its potential and the
building of new conference centres and
hotels. But at the same time, he is
painfully aware of the consequences for
his area and Trinidad if Naipaul-Coolman
is found dead. "Is this city only important
to people when someone like Vindra
gets kidnapped?" he asks.
"Other CEOs are all under threat, if
this can happen to a woman like Vindra,
then it can happen to anyone."
The bullish mayor's city is just getting
over being in the news for other reasons.
Down the road from his office is
the village of Felicity in an area known
as Boot Hill - as are most places in
Trinidad with a cemetery.
It was here that a 21-year-old black
man named Kevin Valley from the neighbouring
village of St Thomas was shot
dead in November. Tensions simmered
with angry confrontations between villagers,
roadblocks and reports of interracial
violence previously unheard of in
this ethnically-mixed area.
Rumours and theories abound about
the kidnappers: that bank tellers are part
of the problem or the security services.
Some even claim Islamist group Jamaat
al Muslimeen is involved.
This may just be a remnant of ill feeling
from 1990 when the faction led an
attempted coup on the island, storming
Parliament and blowing up a police station,
before surrendering after a six-day
siege.
Whatever the case, many wealthier
Indo-Trinidadians have hired private
security guards. "People perceive the
Indian population to be more wealthy.
Most importantly, they are seen to be
weak and soft targets who will not fight
back," says Dr Kumar Mahabir, an
anthropologist at University of Trinidad
and Tobago who has analysed the kidnappings
and points out that 75% of
those kidnapped are of Indian origin.
The republic was practically crime-free
in the 1970s. However the international
trade in cocaine has led to Trinidad
being used as a conduit point for drugs
and guns, the drugs going on to the US,
the guns staying in Trinidad. To make
matters worse, anecdotal evidence suggests
crime always increases here
between Christmas and Carnival, when
every night sees a major party at some
part of the island.
The island is comparatively safe - the
300 murders reported last year is still
way below the 1200 reported in
Jamaica. And Trinidad's national security
services are at pains to point out that
they have spent millions of dollars on
high-tech law enforcement tricks such as
a (much-derided) airship full of surveillance
devices. They have also set up an
anti-kidnapping squad and brought in
overseas police officers, including some
from Scotland Yard and the US.
The hunt, for Mrs Naipaul Coolman,
involving 300 officers, is the most extensive
- and expensive - the force has
ever operated. Police have searched the
Lake in Longdenville, west of Chaguanas,
draining the cayman-filled water
after a tip-off. They found nothing. There
are rumours that the kidnappers shot
Mrs Naipual Coolman and that she died
of her wounds. The police say only that
they are following strong leads. Locals
are sceptical they will find her there, with
some thinking she is much closer to
home. "The best place to hide someone
is out in the open," says one resident.
A shorter, version of this article
appeared in the January 27, 2007
edition of The Guardian, London.
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