PORT OF SPAIN (Trinidad): Soaring murder rates, kidnappings and exploding trash bins have two Caribbean tourist playgrounds on edge, with business owners pleading for police protection and foreign governments warning travellers to be wary.
The important tourism sectors in Trinidad and Tobago and in Jamaica could be hard hit if governments do not act soon, business leaders say. But so far Caribbean residents, not tourists, have borne the brunt of the crime surge.
“The situation of crime in the region today scares the living daylights out of every one of us,” the president of the Caribbean Hotel Association, Bethia Parle, said recently in Trinidad.
In Jamaica, owners shut their businesses for a day in May to protest the high crime rate. The island of 2.7 million people has had more than 1,400 murders so far this year, already outnumbering the total for all of last year.
In Trinidad and Tobago, the violent-death toll is edging toward a record 300.
The US State Department has warned Americans to avoid Trinidad’s capital on certain days because of trash bin bombings that have occurred on the 10th and 11th of the month for the last three months.
Britain, Canada and Australia have also warned their citizens about robberies, violent attacks and kidnappings in Trinidad and Tobago.
At the urging of business groups, Prime Minister Patrick Manning is negotiating with Scotland Yard and the FBI to set up units in Port of Spain to help local police fight crime.
