VZCZCXYZ0012
RR RUEHWEB

DE RUEHSP #0405/01 0901629
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 311629Z MAR 06
FM AMEMBASSY PORT OF SPAIN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6634
INFO RUCNCOM/EC CARICOM COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS PORT OF SPAIN 000405 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR WHA/CAR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KDEM TD
SUBJECT:  AMBASSADOR'S CONVERSATION WITH DOOKERAN ON CRIME, 
POLITICS AND THE AMBASSADOR/GOTT RELATIONSHIP 
 
 
1)  (U) SUMMARY: Ambassador Austin met with opposition UNC 
Political Leader Winston Dookeran at a time when it looks as 
if the UNC's prolonged internal disarray could ultimately 
lead to the party's defeat at the next election.  After 
Dookeran praised US assistance during the 1990 Jamaat coup 
attempt, he and the Ambassador discussed the continuing 
crime wave in the country and Dookeran's proposals for 
alleviating poverty.  They also talked of the split in the 
UNC's leadership, Dookeran's vision of a "new politics" and 
his own future inside the party or as the leader of some 
"third force".  Finally, the Ambassador refuted logically 
and vigorously Dookeran's perception that the Ambassador is 
excessively supportive of the ruling PNM government and not 
sufficiently open to Dookeran's own ideas for change.  END 
SUMMARY. 
 
2)  (U) Ambassador Austin met, on March 7, with Winston 
Dookeran, Political Leader of the opposition United National 
Congress (UNC). Dookeran was forthcoming, honest and, as the 
Ambassador openly told him "very likeable".  Dookeran was 
laudatory about one particular aspect of the USG/GOTT 
bilateral relationship.  Referring to the Jamaat-al- 
muslimeen failed coup attempt of 1990, Dookeran lamented the 
fact that the assistance provided to the GOTT at that time 
by the FBI's hostage negotiating team has never been 
properly acknowledged.  When the Ambassador recalled then 
president Arthur N.R. Robinson's order to "attack with full 
force", Dookeran said that the advice of on-site US 
intelligence officers to the GOTT not to follow the 
president's order was obviously wise. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
THE SEEMINGLY INSOLUBLE PROBLEM OF CRIME 
---------------------------------------- 
 
3)  (U) Ambassador Austin and Dookeran agreed that the crime 
they were both familiar with in their youth could not be 
compared with the escalating quantity and viciousness of 
crime today.  Dookeran concurred when the Ambassador said 
that the low rate of crime detection and criminal conviction 
in T&T tends to give individual criminals and gangs a sense 
of impunity and emboldens them to commit more crimes of an 
even more daring nature.  The Ambassador asked Dookeran 
about his attitude toward the Keith Noel 136 Committee led 
by Stephen Cadiz. Dookeran said he is sympathetic to 
grassroots anti-crime campaigns such as that of the Noel 
Committee and had personally participated in the committee's 
"death march" of October 2005.  He spoke favorably of Cadiz 
and his recently-announced referendum on individual rights, 
poverty and leadership, and said he and Cadiz speak the same 
language. 
 
4)  (U) Ambassador Austin and Dookeran agreed that 
corruption in the publicly-funded Unemployment Relief 
Program and the Community Based Environmental Protections 
and Enhancement Program has been an important factor 
contributing to the crime surge.  Dookeran said he has 
proposed market-based solutions to the problem of youth 
unemployment as well as other social strategies such as 
government purchase of insurance for the financing of 
tertiary education for disadvantaged youth.  However, the 
Ambassador pointed out to Dookeran that many of his 
recommendations tend to be abstract and lacking in 
specificity, which has led him to wonder if ordinary voters 
can understand Dookeran's proposals. 
 
---------------------------- 
A SQUARE PEG IN A ROUND HOLE 
---------------------------- 
 
5)  (U) Dookeran recognized the ambiguity of his position on 
the T&T political scene and how totally at odds his placid 
personality and seminar-leading style are with T&T's 
traditional political culture and with his own party.  As he 
said to the Ambassador, both the ruling People's National 
Movement (PNM) and the UNC subscribe to a cut-throat 
political culture which eschews collaboration and compromise 
in favor of a central guiding principle-the pursuit of 
power.  As for his role within the UNC, Dookeran told the 
Ambassador that he knew "from day one" that party icon 
Basdeo Panday never intended the concept of a split party 
leadership to succeed and that Panday would muddy the 
leadership waters by retaining for himself the role of 
parliamentary opposition leader.  This maneuver placed 
Dookeran in an almost untenable position. 
 
6)  (U) Throughout the past six months, Panday has subjected 
Dookeran to the worst indignities and embarrassments he 
could muster, omitting to invite him to leadership meetings 
 
and failing to attend Dookeran's own "unity" seminars.  In 
the name of party unity, Panday fired UNC Senator Robin 
Montano, ostensibly for airing the party's dirty linen 
before the media, which was quickly followed by the 
resignations of two more Dookeran adherents, Senator Roy 
Augustus and Member of Parliament Gerald Yetming.  Most 
recently, against Dookeran's advice, Panday scheduled the 
major UNC "unity" rally of February 19, at which Panday's 
supporters publicly forgave and welcomed back to the fold 
the controversial Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj who is widely 
credited with having brought about the defeat of the UNC 
government, at the 2002 election. 
 
7)  (U) Ever the team player and in his desire to 
demonstrate the real party unity he craves, Dookeran joined 
Panday, Maharaj and millionaire businessman and deputy 
Political Leader Jack Warner on the podium.  Dookeran 
delivered his standard party-unifying, national consensus- 
building speech.  However, he was booed by UNC party workers 
reportedly ferried to the rally for the purpose.  Dookeran 
told the Ambassador that, since the rally, many UNC 
supporters had apologized to him for the booing.  The 
Ambassador praised Dookeran for his courage in sticking to 
his principles and for delivering his message to at best a 
lukewarm and even partly hostile crowd. 
 
----------------- 
DOOKERAN'S VISION 
----------------- 
 
8)  (U) Dookeran's vision is of a "new politics" comprising 
a three fold goal: unity within the UNC; the transformation 
of T&T's political culture to one of compromise and 
collaboration across the partisan divide in parliament; and 
the detribalization of the electorate away from entrenched 
racial identities and toward a broader national consensus 
based on issues.  Dookeran wondered aloud how much time 
there is left for T&T to be set on a more permanently stable 
political course.  He said he believes it is the current 
economic bubble fueled by the oil and gas boom which is 
keeping the lid on any potential, underlying social 
instability.  However, Dookeran believes that, if and when 
the bubble bursts, the combination of criminality, lack of 
confidence in the political system and an economic downturn 
may well generate social instability out of which will 
emerge what he called "despotic leadership". 
 
9)  (U) Perhaps partly out of wishful thinking, Dookeran 
told the Ambassador that, even in the two major parties, he 
senses the beginnings of a yearning for a new national 
identity behind which neither Afro-Trinidadians nor Indo- 
Trinidadians will feel threatened and second-rate.  He said 
he believes the bulk of the UNC's rank-and-file membership 
is with him, while acknowledging that the party's 
institutions may not be.  Even though Dookeran believes he 
has more support outside the party than within it, he feels 
he must operate from within his party base because otherwise 
he will be no more than a voice in the wilderness. 
 
-------------------- 
DOOKERAN'S COMPLAINT 
-------------------- 
 
10)  (SBU) Dookeran expressed some frustration with what he 
perceived to be the Ambassador's reluctance to ever 
criticize the PNM government, and said it is his sense that 
the Ambassador believes that any initiative designed to 
change the established order will not work.  The Ambassador 
conceded that he, like other ambassadors, tends to lean 
toward collaborating with the government in office rather 
than gratuitously confronting it.  Moreover, he must avoid 
any appearance of involvement in T&T's partisan politics. 
 
11)  (U) COMMENT: Dookeran's claim that, outside the UNC 
structure, he would be nothing more than a voice in the 
wilderness is puzzling.  Many of the budding third parties 
which have recently sprouted, such as the Democratic 
National Assembly and the Movement for National Development, 
are theoretically his soul mates.  Many of them have sprung 
from a segment of the T&T middle class which reportedly 
occupies the unaffiliated middle ground of the electorate 
and might find Dookeran's calm somewhat professorial style 
appealing.  Whether because of past disinterest in politics 
or because of disgust with corruption or with crime left 
unattended, they seem to share with him the desire to do 
away with the old tribalized party configuration and move 
toward a non-racial, national identity and issue-based 
consensus.  On the other hand, Dookeran's reluctance to 
leave the UNC and attempt to lead this so called "third 
 
force" may simply be a candid admission of his lack of 
political organizing skills. 
 
12)  (U) COMMENT CONTINUED: If one takes the existing 
racially divided electorate and party structure as a given 
(and there is no strong reason not to), it is difficult to 
see how the UNC can recover sufficiently to present a 
winning face to T&T's voters in time for the next election 
scheduled for 18 months from now at the most.  This 
prognosis could change, if Panday were to retire or, by some 
unlikely conversion, hand over total leadership to Dookeran. 
Otherwise, any patching up of the differences between the 
two warring camps in the UNC would be cosmetic only and 
unlikely to last.  The UNC's fortunes might also change, if 
the PNM government were to be overtaken by some massive, 
unforeseen public scandal.  The only other alternative would 
involve taking the long view whereby Dookeran would leave 
the UNC, having done his best to cooperate with Panday and 
bring the party along with him, and establish the much- 
touted "third force" in T&T politics.  However, building 
that "third force" sufficiently to match the strength of the 
PNM would take longer than 18 months, especially given 
Dookeran's lack of charisma and a common touch.  It would 
leave the PNM in power at the next election, but if Dookeran 
were to make a credible showing at that time, he may well 
have a chance to assume office at the following election. 
END COMMENT.