Trinidad and Tobago’s streets are a bloodbath. Yet all our politicians offer are platitudes

The acting attorney general, Stuart Young, left, and minister of national security, Fitzgerald Hinds, hold a press conference about the state of emergency in Trinidad and Tobago. Photograph: Andrea de Silva/Reuters

Just before the new year, Trinidad and Tobago’s government declared a state of emergency after a weekend of gun violence.

Trinidad and Tobago, a country of about 1.5 million people and once the wealthiest in the Caribbean, has been plagued by decades of poor economic and social leadership, gang violence, home invasions, murders and corruption.