Another savage attack on whites in Caribbean island paradise

Retired British businessman Peter Green and his wife Murium have a vacation home in Tobago, a small island (116 square miles, with a population of 54,000, primarily of African descent) that is part of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Apparently the Greens were not put on their guard by the double murder last July of fellow Britons Ben and Catherine Mullany who were shot dead on their honeymoon while staying in a hotel cabin in the Caribbean island of Antigua. Nor were they warned by the double murder last October of Swedish couple Anna Sundsval and Oke Olsoon who were chopped to death in their vacation home on Tobago, within a few miles of the Greens’ home. Nor did the sexual assault at knife point on two British women ten days later at a Tobago guest house make the Greens think they might need more security when staying on the island. Nor did alarm bells go off when the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago was dubbed the “the murder capital of the Caribbean,” this past year, surpassing Jamaica, both because of a 38 percent overall increase in murder, mostly gang related, and because of the incidents mentioned above. Nor did the Greens rethink their vacation plans when the U.S. and the UK issued travel advisories warning about increasing violence on Tobago and the failure of police to apprehend the perpetrators. “You should be aware that there are high levels of violent crime, especially shootings and kidnappings,” announced the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in October 2008. “British nationals have been victims of violent attacks, particularly in Tobago where law enforcement is weak.” And, finally, it goes without saying, the Greens did not read the gripping discussion at this website last July in which Karen from England and Mark Jaws explained that white people should not visit a black-run country unless they are staying in a five star hotel run by an outside corporation, or paying for their own security detail, or carrying their own weapons.

Which is all a buildup to this, in the Mail:

British husband left paralysed and wife who lost part of her jaw in horrific machete attack on Caribbean island

A retired British businessman almost hacked to death on the Caribbean island of Tobago could be left permanently paralysed.

Peter Green, who with wife Murium suffered horrific facial injuries, is paralysed on the left side of his body.

The 65-year-old is still in a medically induced coma after being slashed across the face and head with a machete during the horror attack at their holiday home in Tobago.

Tobago authorities revealed his injuries were so severe a neurosurgeon who was off duty had to be rushed to the Eric Williams hospital in Mount Hope to carry out an emergency operation.

Mr Green is understood to be suffering from internal bleeding as well as swelling of the brain.

His 59-year-old wife had part of her jaw chopped off during the attack at their single storey home in the Bacolet area of the island. She also suffered grievous injuries to her nose and face and needed at least four pints of blood.

Tonight police admitted they were baffled by the motive for the savage attack. No arrests have been made.

It was thought robbery was the prime motive, but police chief Nadir Khan said it appeared valuables, such as jewellery and cash, were still in the house.

‘While robbery has not been ruled out, an inventory has to be done to determine if anything is missing from the home, as a number of articles remained in the home that could have been stolen,’ Khan said.

Locals on the island have also cast doubt on an early police theory that they were attacked because they were tourists.

The couple, from Wellington,Somerset, had been travelling to Tobago for up to ten years and were well known in the area.

Police sources said they were most likely targeted soon after arriving back on the island.

The British High Commissioner for Tobago Eric Jenkinson visited the couple at the Intensive Care Unit at the Complex today.

Despite her injuries, Mrs Green was able to talk with Mr Jenkinson. Family members have also been at the couple’s bedside having flown from the UK.

The Greens own a single storey holiday home in the Bacelot area of the island which is a favourite with honeymooners.

Estate agent Jason Wallace, 30, a friend of the Greens, said: ‘They are a sincere and kind couple and what has transpired upon them is not only a robbery, but also outright evil.’

The Government of Trinidad and Tobago has condemned the violent attack amid fears it will have a negative effect on tourism.

The Ministry of National Security said the attack was being treated with the ‘highest degree of seriousness’.

A spokesman said: ‘The Ministry has reassured the British High Commission that the police are doing everything possible to find the attackers.’

The brutal attack bore striking similarities to the murder of a Swedish couple on the island last year.

Anna Sundsval, 62, and Oke Olsoon, 73, were killed after being stabbed at their home in Bon Accord.

A suspect was held for the murders, but he was later released.

Geoff Patton, the deputy British High Commissioner, said: ‘My Government appreciates the concerns expressed by the Trinidad and Tobago government.

‘I know the family is receiving the best treatment possible. We are very grateful for that. What we do look forward to is the apprehension of the people who committed this horrible crime.’

Kevin Kenny, president of the Trinidad Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Association, said the attack would have a devastating affect on people visiting the island.

‘It is absolutely and totally intolerable,’ he said.

‘Tourists go to the nicest, safest places and if tourists keep getting attacked, they won’t come.’

The island had been dubbed ‘the murder capital of the Caribbean’ after the murders of the Swedish couple and the raping of two British women in front of their husbands by a lone assailant at Black Rock.

A police spokesman said crime scene investigators were still at the Greens’ property looking for evidence.

Police spokesman Annmari Grant said: ‘Investigators believe the UK nationals were attacked and “chopped” using machetes or similar weapons at their Tobago home. There are no suspects.’

She said Mr Green was found inside the house while his wife was outside in the road where she had crawled for help.

The attack is the latest violent attack on Britons visiting the Caribbean.

Two men in Antigua are awaiting trial over the murder of Ben and Catherine Mullany who were shot dead on the last day of their honeymoon.

The couple from Swansea, South Wales, were victims of a violent robbery at the Cocos Hotel and resort last July.

Keniel Martin, 20, and a 17-year-old boy are awaiting trial in Antigua on murder charges.

[end of Mail article]

- end of initial entry -

Karl D., who sent the item, writes:

Notice that it is another botched robbery that has left the police wondering about the motive. Yeah, it is a giant mystery. When will these people learn? Just as bad is the hippie US backpackers who thought it would be a neat idea to hike around the Iraq/Iran border and have now been snatched by the Iranians. What could be going through their head? We are going to go to the heart of an Islamic war zone and hike around. Crazy. I was just thinking today that there are tons of places I would love to visit (Africa, Middle East, Asia), but will probably never get the chance because I like being alive with all my limbs intact. This kind of blind liberal stupidity just leaves me speechless. Yet after these young hippies are freed they will be held up as a portrait of bravery and will probably get show made about them on the National Geographic channel.

LA replies:

They keep asking about the motive when the motive is apparent: it is an instance of pure savagery for the sake of savagery.

A. Zarkov writes:

I’m currently reading Tom Wolfe’s The Bonfire of the Vanities. The central event in the novel is a night-time confrontation between a white couple and two young blacks on a deserted highway entrance ramp in the South Bronx. The white driver, Sherman McCoy, leaves his car (big mistake) to remove a large tire on the ramp blocking his way. He’s suddenly approached by a large black man asking if he can “help.” Sensing a setup, McCoy throws the tire at him and runs back to his car which is now driven by his paramour, Maria. In a state of panic, Maria accidentally backs up and hits the other young black, but not with any great impact. They drive off and fail to report the incident.

I have asked a number of people what they would do in McCoy’s place, and a man of the same description approached them and asked if they wanted help. To my surprise, several people I know, who are hardly liberal, told me that they would not factor race into their response. One normally savvy guy said he would take the offer of help! When I pointed out the enormously high black crime rate, and the circumstances of this encounter, it seemed to make no difference. The whole mindset of non-discrimination is so firmly implanted in their consciousness that they cannot comprehend the danger. I stress again, these people are not normally liberal, but it seems to make no difference. Is it any wonder, then, that we keep hearing about white people recklessly exposng themselves to savage attacks?

LA replies:

This is not an encouraging comment from Mr. Z. We want to be hearing that whites are waking up to racial reality and speaking the truth. Instead, we’re hearing that whites are more asleep and in denial than ever.

But it’s not hard to understand why.

Consider the news coverage about Gatesgate 911 caller Lucia Whalen. We are told over and over that Whalen is not a racist because she didn’t report the suspected breakers-in as black. Overnight it has become the unspoken and unchallenged assumption, built into every single news story about Whalen, that if you’re reporting a possible crime, and the two perpetrators are black, and the 911 operator asks you their race, and you say, “They’re black,” then you are a racist. (And the fact that Gates’s driver was apparently a Moroccan is irrelevant here. The endlessly repeated implicit message in the Whalen story is that to identify a black possible perpetrator as black is racist.)

If whites accept without protest the idea that it is racist, i.e., morally wicked, to tell police that two black suspected perpetrators are black,—if whites believe it’s racist to give the police accurate information about a black person to help them stop a crime or apprehend a suspect—then how do you expect whites to say that they would be extra cautious if a black man approached them on a deserted street in the South Bronx at night and asked them if they wanted “help”? Again, the unarticulated but unopposed rule—we’ll call it the Whalen Rule—is that the communication of any negative information or negative implication about black people, even for public, impersonal purposes, is racist. Which means that it is even more racist to have a negative thought about a black person in a purely personal context, relating to one’s own physical safety.

The Whalen Rule does not mean that henceforth 911 callers will necessarily decline to tell police that a perpetrator is black. But if they do give police that racial information, it will be with a vague, overhanging sense of guilt and fear, it will be with an uncomfortable awareness that one has opened oneself to a charge of racism. The Whalen Rule makes you guilty for being a good citizen—if good citizenship involves saying that a criminal is black. The only way to avoid the guilt, the only way to be truly virtuous, is to follow the Whalen Rule to the letter and decline to identify a black suspect as black, even if the police explicitly ask you for his race. As Lucia Whalen’s attorney Wendy Murphy has said, Whalen, because she declined to tell police that the two men were black, was the only person in the Gates situation who behaved in an exemplary manner.

Charles T. writes:

LA writes: “They keep asking about the motive when the motive is apparent: it is an instance of pure savagery for the sake of savagery. ”

Pure savagery for the sake of savagery. Well said LA. That is an accurate description of how much of the human race operates.

Years ago, I read “Stalin’s Secret War”. Author Nikolai Tolstoy details the terrible crimes Stalin committed against his own citizens. At one point I had to put the book down in order to comprehend what I had just read. The numbers of people incarcerated, tortured, and assaulted in every way imaginable was too much for me to take in. I realized that most of the people brutalized by Stalin’s thugs were never a threat to Stalin himself. These innocent people were brutalized simply because the police-state thugs had the power to do so.

“Savagery for the sake of savagery.” The history of our human race is sad, shameful, and cruel.

LA replies:

Thank you. The automatic, obligatory search by police for some motive, even in crimes that obviously transcend any possible rational purpose, demonstrates the liberal mind in action. If the liberal mind, including the liberal mind of police authorities, can assert some motive on the part of the criminal, no matter how absurd it may be (“they wanted to rob the couple, but the situation got out of hand and they chopped them to pieces instead”), then the liberal mind feels that it has done its essential job of denying the existence of evil. It has erected, in the place of an objective moral order, the liberal order of relativism. Everyone has his desires, his values, his motives. If a criminal has a conscious, rational motive for what he is doing, then he is defined by that rational motive, and since reason is good, and since making choices is the essence of what makes us human, he is not all bad. The totality of his actual criminal behavior gets insensibly reduced down to what he consciously chose. If a criminal chose a robbery, and the robbery got botched and the victims ended up dismembered and dead, the criminal is not really evil, because his motive was to commit a robbery. Of course, none of this is explicitly stated by police and reporters, because it would be indefensible. Rather, it is built into their verbiage and operates insidiously on the public mind without being countered.

By contrast, once a criminal is arrested and there is a criminal indictment and trial, every element of the accused person’s criminal behavior must be demonstrated as being the result of an intention. In criminal law, there is no such thing as murder by botched robbery. Also, in criminal law, the intentions of the accused are not considered as rational, humanizing choices, but as criminal intentions. Criminal law is objective morality made concrete. Yet, contradictorily, in police announcements about a criminal investigation that are intended for the public, the relativistic language is constantly used. Thus, even as they are tracking down evildoers, the police implicitly deny the existence of evil.

The most characteristic action of liberalism is that it uses the names of the old moral truths, such as “crime” and “evil,” even as it undermines people’s belief in their objective reality.

August 5

Karen writes from England:

Incredible that people keep putting themselves in those vulnerable situations.

Here and here are press articles which state that the couple’s house was burgled in the last year. That is a strong indicator that further trouble was ahead.

Crime rates on the island had also risen and just seven miles away the Swedish couple were murdered in their homes. As if that was not enough to make any reasonable sensible people sell the house and quit the island! There are so many other safer places for people to go. On top of all these warning signs, the woman had multiple sclerosis and the man had just been diagnosed with cancer, making them unlikely to be able to defend themselves.

The utter folly of so many white people when they arrive in the Third World is astounding. Why go to an isolated house and live there unguarded in a black country renowned for violence? How could two people of mature years, both ill, imagine that they could defend themselves against the possibility of violent black intruders? I am sure that they would not do that in the black areas of Britain, yet a beautiful palm fringed beach seems to make them take leave of their senses. They could have gone to a hotel or hired security guards. But no, they just went like lambs to the slaughter and more and more of them keep doing it.

James N. writes:

You wrote:

Which means that it is even more racist to have a negative thought about a black person in a purely personal context, relating to one’s own physical safety.

And, as I’ve said before in another context, how can young whites and white females expunge this awful thoughtcrime?

In Massachusetts, they can vote for Deval Patrick, and in all 50 states, they can vote for Barack Obama, that’s how.

James N. continues:

You wrote [in another entry pointing to this entry]:

[Mr. Zarkov] reports that even non-liberals of his acquaintance tell him that they would not feel any particular sense of caution, let alone alarm, if they found themselves in the primal situation of Sherman McCoy in The Bonfire of the Vanities, and a black man approached them at night on a deserted street in the South Bronx and asked them if they wanted “help.”

Well, it is evidence of the perdurability of the “active anti-racism” mindset that his friends would SAY that.

It has yet to be demonstrated that they would DO that (i.e., get out of their cars in the South Bronx at noon, never mind after dark).

I lived in East Flatbush, Brooklyn from 1972-76 and in Manhattan from 1976-1980. I drove through Bedford-Stuyvesant and East Harlem all the time, and in the early part of that period I visited a girlfriend by driving through the South Bronx. If white persons had really developed sufficient moral insanity between 1980 and 2009 to be getting out of their cars in the dark to approach black people in those areas , there would be thousands and thousands of stranger murders in NYC, but we know this is not true.

Probably people just SAY they would do that, but in reality they just vote for Obama instead.

LA replies:

This is a very sharp point, but I think you are too dismissive of the grave import of what Mr. Zarkov’s friends tell him about their racial attitudes. Yes, as you point out, they would NOT actually be so insanely race blind as to expose themselves to the approach of a strange black man in a deserted street in the South Bronx. But they very likely WOULD be so politically-correctly race blind as to behave like Lucia Whalen and religously avoid any mention of race where the mention of race is necessary. After all, if these people are, as you say, so bent out of shape about race that they cover up their negative thoughts about blacks by voting for Obama, wouldn’t they also be sufficiently bent out of shape about race as to follow the Whalen Rule?

Again, you are probably right: Mr. Zarkov’s friends, notwithstanding their claims, would not, by and large, needlessly expose themselves to possibly dangerous blacks. But at the same time we have to believe that some of their race blindness would spill over into practical situations where one’s safety is at risk. A man who explicitly denies that a “Bonfire” type situation is inherently dangerous, is a man who will not be able to think clearly and act clearly with regard to actual dangerous situations in which he may find himself.

James N. writes:

“After all, if these people are, as you say, so bent out of shape about race that they cover up their negative thoughts about blacks by voting for Obama…”

I have never said that the core of Obama’s white support—young whites and white females—are “bent out of shape” about race. In fact, I believe they are consciously quite nonchalant about race. However, when they are walking home at night and encounter blacks on the street, or when their car breaks down and a black approaches, etc, etc, they have an involuntary and entirely healthy reaction.

Their awareness of this reaction creates a situation which they cannot explain to themselves (WHY did I feel/act like that?).

The resulting neurotic conflict—and that’s exactly what it is—creates a defense mechanism, as neurotic conflicts are wont to do.

The public expression of these defenses are what we call “active anti-racism.” Fortunately, only a few Amy Biehls and Peter Greens are so self-deluded as to live it out—but there are millions and millions who will vote for Obama instead of getting out of the car.

LA replies:

I’m a little confused. Earlier you wrote:

And, as I’ve said before in another context, how can young whites and white females expunge this awful thoughtcrime?

… [T]hey can vote for Barack Obama, that’s how.

Then I said:

… if these people are, as you say, so bent out of shape about race that they cover up their negative thoughts about blacks by voting for Obama…

And now you say:

I have never said that the core of Obama’s white support—young whites and white females—are “bent out of shape” about race.

It seems to me that I was correctly characterizing your earlier comment, and I’m not sure where I’m getting you wrong.

Laura W. writes:

Regarding your reply to Charles T.:

This is a brilliant statement.

If most crimes can be reduced to acts of reason, we are spared any reckoning with evil, which can be controlled and contained by human programs. It’s as if every crime is one more justification for the supervision of all society. We can be educated and nurtured out of our base impulses. There is no risk of being overwhelmed by the awesome power of evil, no need to reckon with its supernatural dimension. It’s a comforting view, but an unsatisfactory one because it leaves our underlying suspicion that we are dealing with things far bigger than human will and reason unaddressed.

“By contrast, once a criminal is arrested and there is a criminal indictment and trial, every element of the accused person’s criminal behavior must be demonstrated as being the result of an intention.”

Thus massive amounts of time and money are spent in the grandiose quest to determine the sanity, the intelligence and the reasoning of the accused when the state’s obligation should be to determine who did it and to punish whoever did it.

LA replies:

Thank you.

By my statement that you quote, I didn’t mean anything special. I simply meant that criminal intent must be demonstrated as part of a criminal act: the defendant intended to shoot someone (criminal intent), and he shot him (criminal act). At the same time, motive does not have to be established to establish criminal guilt. Yes, showing the defendant’s motive might help convince the jury that he did it, but showing his motive for committing the criminal act is not legally necessary in order to establish that he committed the criminal act, only that he intended to commit the act. Yet, as we see over and over, every time there is some savage violent crime, the police chiefs and police spokesmen are all over themselves wondering what the perpetrator’s “motive” was, making the discovery of the inner workings of some savage’s mind the most important aspect of the case, the sine qua non of understanding the nature of the crime, almost as though, without that metaphysical knowledge, it hasn’t really been established that there was a crime.

James P. writes:

“the definition of racism has been implicitly but massively expanded to include accurately reporting the race of black perpetrators to police. If society prohibits you even to tell police the race of a black suspect, how can you possible allow yourself to think that a black person may be personally dangerous to yourself?”

Based on my recent experience, if you don’t tell the police the race of the suspect up front, they will ask you—as of course they should, since they don’t want to waste everybody’s time looking for and hassling the wrong people. Am I supposed to refuse to tell them so that I can’t be accused of “racial profiling”?

LA replies:

According to the Whalen Rule, yes. Just look at the statements of Whalen and her lawyer in the google search results I linked, and at the way their statements are reported. Find a statement by the media challenging Whalen’s clear implication that the proof that she is not racist is that she didn’t mention that the men were black, even when the police asked her.

Does this mean that people will follow the Whalen Rule, and refuse to give police the information they need? Of course not. In most cases people will try to help the police. But the point of the Whalen Rule is that is that if you do give police the information, if you do your ordinary duty as a citizen, then there is a guilt hanging over you, you’re not clean. Which really means that we’re all basically guilty for existing in a world in which black people are not as economically successful as we are, and are more disordered and criminal than we are. Which means that we are guilty for existing, period. Which, after all, is the basic message of liberalism. Only the Lucia Whalens can lay claim to being truly clean.

And notice also that Whalen’s cleanness is not cancelled out by her telling the police that one of the men might have been Hispanic. It’s only black perpetrators whom one must not identify by race, it’s only blacks about whom nothing critical must be said or implied..

Carol Iannone writes:

Regarding Lucia Whalen’s statements, what you say is true, but could it be that she really didn’t see the men, so that she couldn’t say? She did say one was maybe Hispanic, and maybe that was the Moroccan driver?

However, the point is still there, she’s acting as if it’s racist to mention race at all. She is not saying, “I didn’t see clearly, so I didn’t mention race.” She’s implying that it would be wrong to mention race in any circumstances.

LA replies:

Yes, exactly.

Mike Berman writes:

The last time I reported a crime to a policeman was after witnessing a thug perform some sort of scam to let passengers gain entry to the subway using his MetroCard. When I was asked to give a description, I replied, “This may come as a complete shock to you, but it was a six foot black male.”

LA writes:

Relative to our discussion here about the search for rational motive, see my exchange with Mike J. in the entry about the spate of group muggings in Chicago.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 04, 2009 06:43 PM | Send