Nicholas Laughlin's blog etc.

Prime Minister Patrick Manning didn't say he knew who is the bomber involved in the four explosions which have rocked Port of Spain, National Security Minister Martin Joseph said yesterday.

In a statement to the Senate yesterday, Joseph said he had been asked to correct reports in the press, attributed to the Prime Minister on Monday in Parliament on the bombings.

Manning told the House that the Government had a good idea of who "Mr Big" is in the bombings but lacked evidence to take any action at this time.

But yesterday Joseph said Manning said he knew who "Mr Big" was but "not that he knew who the bomber is."

In other words, they don't know one damn thing.

At the end of his statement, UNC Senator Robin Montano loudly called out to Joseph: "Resign! It's time to resign!"

No, what it's time for now, it seems to me, is a massive campaign of civil disobedience. I don't mean just marching through Port of Spain, as powerful as that symbolic act might be. I mean peaceful occupation of the Red House by citizens. I mean islandwide roadblocks to shut the country down for a day (like they do in Jamaica every six months or so). I mean a general strike. I mean a pact by all the members of all the chambers of commerce to withhold tax payments until there is some credible action by the government of Trinidad and Tobago to deal with this crime surge that is undeniably terrorising the populace. If Mr. Manning doesn't know how to act, he ought to resign, & take his government with him. If, however, he is simply refusing to act--to do anything beyond the pappyshow of grandiloquent speechifying & boasting about the purchase of pointless, incredibly expensive "crime-fighting" equipment--then his callousness has itself become criminal, and it may be time for citizens to declare our own form of state of emergency.