Just after midnight Tuesday, as most of the country dozed, the vehicles bearing dozens of camouflage-clad cops pulled up quietly outside the high walls of the nondescript Transformed Life Ministry (TLM), along the major Eastern Main Road.
Normally congested during the day and a nightmare to navigate during rush hours, the road winds from Trinidad and Tobago’s crowded capital, Port-of-Spain in the west to bustling Sangre Grande in the east, and through small residential towns like Arouca, derived from the indigenous Arawak name for the region and nearby river. There are several public places of prayer from Pentecostal to Presbyterian along the way, and until this week TLM seemed like any another established religious organisation in this land of many, where missions, masjids and temples draw the devout one day at a time.
Founded in jail, about 19 years ago by Glen Awong, a reformed prisoner, turned inspirational pastor who had a grand vision of helping and healing others, primarily those on the fringes of society, TLM boasted on its website of seeking “to rehabilitate ex-prisoners and deportees through creating a safe and peaceful environment.”
Against the serene snapshot of a beckoning pathway flanked by lush trees, the organisation promised “shelter, food, clothing, counselling, and a number of skills development and training programs” to promote participants’ “healthy reintegration into society.”
TLM planned “a centre of excellence.” Authorities found a disturbing dwelling house of desperation and darkness, the images shocking even a seemingly implacable society, long accustomed to rising crime and nearly daily murders. Masked members of the Police’s Special Operation Response Team (SORT) scaled the church’s concrete fence and opened the rusting main gate decorated with the faded TLM letters and logo of a symbolic tree perched atop a verdant hill, the barren branches changed in the other half of the drawing, to one of promise, bearing golden balls of ripe fruit.
Behind the worn façade featuring the words “Rehabilitation Centre” in peeling paint, the building, bright blue like the beautiful Caribbean Sea became a private prison for some 70 vulnerable Trinidadians, aged 19 to 70, including four women discovered early Wednesday morning, confined to cold metal cages, reinforced with heavy iron bars and bolted in with added padlocks.
In an official Police video released on Youtube yesterday, a pair of shining handcuffs dangle from a horizontal bar, and an elderly man lies still, covered with a thin sheet on a small cot in his assigned kennel. The feet of another shake in the semi-lit darkness, and women with their faces blurred, sit silent on the edges of their beds, waiting and watching.
Police Commissioner, Gary Griffith believes it is “the biggest human trafficking ring in the country.” Calling the TLM headquarters “a crime scene,” he described the conditions as “barbaric” and “virtual, modern day slavery” revealing that residents were held against their will, caged, some tortured and handcuffed, and others left at the facility for years. Tasers and batons were among the items found.
He thanked an informant and Guardian Media, whose Main Investigative Reporter Mark Bassant had worked two months on the story, disclosing some persons may have been forced to sign documents to hand over funds and assets. “This obviously is a bigger picture where financial gain is the order of the day” he told Bassant.
According to a 2006 blogpost from the “Restorative Review,” Pastor Awong was among the seven founding members of CURB, the so-called Caribbean Umbrella Body For Restorative Behaviour (CURB), nearly all of whom found God while in Trinidadian jails. CURB said that Awong “was a former drug addict who received multiple prison sentences” but “while in prison, he received Jesus Christ as his personal Saviour and his life was transformed.”
Another of the group, the New Hope Prison Ministry was established by Richard Barker, “who was the leader of the feared Vikings gang in Trinidad and Tobago. He received a prison sentence of 13 years and 6 strokes with the cat-o-nine (tail/whip) in 1975. After 3 months in prison he heard a supernatural voice calling him to repent and he immediately underwent a spiritual transformation.” CURB added the “Woman Thou Art Loosed Foundation Luke. 13:12” was set up by Claudine Henry who received a death sentence in 1988 becoming the first woman to be sentenced to hang in the twin islands” The post stated, “Although still sentenced to death, she received a divine promise that she would be released and eventually won her appeal against conviction and sentence in 1998.”
TLM said on its website Pastor Awong’s work “was derived from his personal experience and socialization with prisoners.” While “serving a seven-year term at the Golden Grove Prison, Pastor Awong answered the call from God and started his ministry within the prison walls.” It added, “The prison officials welcomed and supported the efforts of inmate Awong, and he was released early for good behaviour.”
Up to press time, Awong and at least two others remained in custody. At a meeting of a Parliamentary Joint Select Committee to inquire into and report on social services and public administration in June 2016, chaired by economist. Dr. Dhanayshar Mahabir, Pastor Awong spoke of his time with the needy, declaring that TT’s streets are “in a mess.” Transcripts of the session are online.
The Pastor who headed a TLM team that included wife, Florence, contributed, “I have over 25 years working with the socially displaced … picking them up from the streets, bringing them by me, bathing them, cleaning them. Some of them was (sic) real wounded with maggots and worms and different things like that, rejected by the hospital at times…I just worked with about 200 people under the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services and my experience was not too nice.”
Terming the situation “very hurtful” and urging “greater effort,” he pointed out most of TT’s homeless people suffer from mental illness and/or were addicts. He urged different laws so that “you (can) have the right to pick up these people from the streets because the street is in a mess.”
He estimated it would cost a minimum TT$6000, to cover an affected “rock-bottom” street dweller per month, in terms of meals, medication and transportation.
“You have to have doctors” and “mental psychiatrist(s)…you have to have caregivers, you have to have security because they are not taking their medication for a very long while and they come in, in a real state.” He lamented that “Women are running from them when they see them mad…coming to beg for a dollar. A woman fell down (sic) just the other day and broke her foot. A street dweller raped a woman in St. James. So it is something haunting our country and it needs immediate attention.”
TLM’s site features an hour-long 2014 documentary on the church and several of the men it had treated as it sought donations and outside financial support. A “client,” Kailash Maharaj admitted he had been a cocaine user who ended up on the streets, conceding he could relapse on release but wanted to re-join his family, including his Pandit father and brother, who visited “regularly,” sometimes twice a week and who he had let down “terribly.” Maharaj smiled for a moment, “Well the Devil is very busy…”
ID hears the altered words, “Come go… Arouca tonight, Sangre Grande tomorrow night.” The famous Arima opening line was sung by Wilmoth Houdini back in 1931, as a classic ‘lavway’ or ole-time calypso.
