CALYPSO CELEBRATES TRINIDAD HANGINGS

Like samizdat, the latest work of Winston "Explainer" Henry has been
filtering through the streets of Port of Spain this weekend. He has
yet to compose the music, nor has he made arrangements to record it.
But for this calypso, it is the words that count. It is called "Hang
Dem High" and you can tap your own beat.

Use the hangman's rope as bowtie; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / And
no lawyer can't ask me why; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / Don't
mind how they beg and cry; / Hang dem high, hang dem high / Who loves
to kill must not fraid to die.

Who loves to kill are indeed being killed. They are the Trinidad Nine,
a gang of thugs convicted in 1996 for the brutal slaying of Hamilton
"Teddy Mice" Baboolal and, for good measure, of his mother, his sister
and his aged father. One by one, they are being led to the noose at
Frederick Street jail over three days: Friday, yesterday and tomorrow.
There is a break for the Sabbath today.

Such a grisly succession of executions has rarely been seen. No family
visits were allowed in the convicts' last hours. Their bodies are
being dumped in unconsecrated graves between the perimeter fences of
another prison, incongruously called Golden Grove. A deep ditch runs
alongside them. And "Explainer" has the mood right; there are few
tears being shed.

"Finally," blared one of the twin islands' newspapers yesterday. If
there is relief - it is not exactly celebration - it is felt over the
demise in particular of the first of the men on the gallows, Dole
Chadee. Chadee was the gang leader and a powerful drugs baron enriched
by the cocaine trade between Latin America and the United States. Many
had thought his last day would never come.

By yesterday, there was almost an air of routine in the street outside
the jail. Shortly after 6am, the Commissioner of Prisons, Cipriani
Batiste, strode from the gate, as he had three times on Friday, to
confirm, without elaboration, that the first of the day's three
hangings had been successfully carried out. He would be back twice
more. The process lasts a while - each man is left to dangle for an
hour before removal.

Even the commandos of the Emergency Guard, MP-5 submachine guards at
their sides, were growing more relaxed - yesterday most crossed the
road to a small cafe, escaping the blistering heat outside, to watch
South Africa take on Pakistan in the cricket World Cup. Only the Hindu
holy man, who is allowed to see each convict as he goes to the
gallows, reminded us of the death that was unfolding inside the jail.

"Each time it is gruesome," said Pundit Dinnanath Dubay. Of Chadee, in
his last moments, he said: "He looked serene and poised. But he was
sad and withdrawn." The Pundit voiced his own mixed feelings over the
executions. "There is a positive effect, because I think with these
executions, the murders will lessen. At the same time, I feel that
life has to be preserved."

It is a recent escalation of violence on these normally languid
islands that has denied these men

popular compassion. More than 80 per cent of the country's population
have voiced support for the death penalty. Asked on Friday what he
thought of the petition sent to him by figures such as Archbishop
Desmond Tutu begging for clemency, the Attorney General of Trinidad
and Tobago, Ramesh Maharah, told reporters bluntly: "I have not read
it".

The executions may have serial legal and constitutional repercussions.
They have come after three years of legal wrangling that extended to
the Privy Council in London, which remains the court of last resort
for defendants in all of Britain's former Caribbean colonies. Even
though it cleared the way for the hangings finally on 26 May - and
refused final appeals on Friday morning - the Council is widely seen
as an insulting vestige of the Empire that should have no role here.

Indeed, moves to that end are already under way. Next month, heads of
government of several Caribbean Commonwealth members are to approve
initial steps towards creating a court of their own that will
eventually replace the Council in London. This could mean a much
faster journey to the gallows for the roughly 250 inmates on Death Row
across the region.

Among those gathered at Golden Grove on Friday to watch the burial of
Chadee from the other side of the prison fence was Mitchum Campo. He
had brought his 20-year-old son, Jason, along with him. "I wanted him
to see that crime doesn't pay," he said. Deterrence, he said, was the
point. "If this deters just one person from committing a murder, then
that is good enough for me."