As the news broke over the weekend that US law enforcement officials had uncovered a plot to bomb fuel tanks and pipelines at New York's JFK International Airport, bloggers in Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana reacted with consternation. The alleged mastermind of the plot, Russell Defreitas, is a US citizen born in Guyana; two of his alleged co-conspirators are Guyanese citizens (one of them a former member of the Guyanese parliament and mayor of the town of Linden); and the fourth suspect is Trinidadian. As a result, international news media coverage of the alleged plot has branded the two south Caribbean nations as new “hotbeds” of terrorist activity.
Guyana-Gyal's response was “grief”: “we hear the news yesterday, take down we flags and hang we heads instead in shame and grief, stop this rain and let we tears rain down instead.” Elspeth at Now Is Wow said she was “unable to think anything but … why?“ And Allyuh.com posted some of the alarming graphics broadcast during the coverage of the story on Fox News.
The Manicou Report worried about the implications of having these two small countries implicated in the “War on Terror”:
You see, America, the Fox News Channel is up to it's old war-baiting sensational tricks again. It's reporting that Trinidad and Tobago is the “New Hotbed in the War on Terror”. Now hoooooooooooold on for a just a sec…. we would rather not have any part in your war on terror. A couple arrests doesn't make us a hotbed.
KnowProSE wondered exactly how the plot was discovered: “This is a country where they cannot find kidnappers and murderers; it seems somewhat strange that the people accused gave this information out so easily.” Other bloggers were more outspoken about their suspicions. “My country may not be the best, but it sure ain't no hotbed of terrorist activity,” said Outa Meh Head. “I think this whole thing was just an example of the US using the fear of its citizens to distract them from what's happening in Iraq.” Jeremy Taylor asked, “How serious could this thing really be?”:
Of course a really well-planned airport attack would be a nightmare. But this quartet had been infiltrated by the Americans since January last year, and all the FBI could produce as evidence was some banter about how big a deal it could all be to blow up JFK, the sort of conversation that must go on in a million places around the world every day.
And even as the Guyanese newspaper Stabroek News published a detailed summary of the evidence as reported by US investigators, Living Guyana made a few wisecracks:
If this guy, a hardcore Lindener and others were planning to take out the entire JFK then it might not be so far fetched that Osama might actually be hiding out in some spider hole in Buxton backdam.
The CIA better check it out.
7 comments
Wat happen’ to we sovereignty?
We beliving dese same peeple wo sey
“Saddam have weapons of mass destrucshun?”
Is a sad day for we wen we liders dis sell we as slaves to de white masters.
Two people from Trinidad trying to blow up JFK Airport does not make Trinidad a terrorists haven. Trinidad is still the best place to be for many people. We have no interest in hating America or Americans.
Trinidadians should not be judged by the actions of two dillusional men.
This and that: Terror plot and yesterday at Antilles edition…
Bloggers on the “terror plot”: Over at Global Voices, Nikipedia has posted an article rounding up the reactions from the Trinidadian and Guyanese blogospheres to this weekend’s announcement of a “terror plot” against New Y…
I wouldn’t worry too much about this if I were you. The crazy people at Fox News think terrorists are hiding everywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if they were checking their flower pots and closets to see if terrorists were hiding in them. Just because the media is focusing on Guyana, as well as Trinidad and Tobago, doesn’t mean that the public is.
Barbados Underground recently publishes a story which factors the kind of crime which Guyanese especially appear to be having on the landscape of Barbados. As you know there is a very large immigrant Guyanese and Trinidadian population in Barbados.