The Truth About Trinidad and Guyana

If you watch Fox News, you suddenly get the impression that the Caribbean countries of Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana are some sort of Saudi Arabia-like Muslim terrorist states close to home, almost like a modern-day Cuba during the Cold War.

Here are some facts about the two countries who have the unfortunate notoriety of being the homes of the guys who thought they could set JFK Airport aflame;

TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO;

Trinidad and Tobago is a liberal democracy with a two-party system and a bicameral parliamentary system based on the Westminster System. The Head of State of Trinidad and Tobago is the President, currently Professor Emeritus George Maxwell Richards. The Head of Government is the Prime Minister. The President is elected by an Electoral College consisting of the full membership of both houses of Parliament. The Prime Minister is appointed by the President. The President is required to appoint the leader of the party who in his opinion has the most support of the members of the House of Representatives to this post; this has generally been the leader of the party which won the most seats in the previous election

-Sounds to me like the illegitimate love child of the US and the UK.

Trinidad's population is only 6% Muslim. The majority of it's population is Christian with one and four being Hindu.

GUYANA-

Only about 10% of the population of Guyana practices Islam, or about 76,000 people. Most of the rest of the population is either Christian or Hindu (especially the dominant Indo-Guyanese community.)

Guyana is a democracy, with an elected national assembly and an indirectly elected president.

Both countries have freedoms of speech, press, religion and assembly. They are as western as any other country in this hemisphere.

Both countries are poorer than the United States, with Trinidad and Tobago having roughly the same GDP per capita as Saudi Arabia and Guyana much lower.

Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago may have a problem with a few of it's Muslim population (as does countries like the UK, India, Russia and France,) but they are hardly "hotbeds of Islamic terror."