Resh­ma Ra­goonath

In an open de­c­la­ra­tion of war on crime, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has an­nounced the in­sti­tu­tion of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency in sev­er­al ar­eas deemed as crime hot spots, ef­fec­tive as off mid­night last night. Last night, Per­sad-Bisses­sar, af­ter an emer­gency meet­ing with mem­bers of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and her Cab­i­net at her pri­vate Phillip­ine, San Fer­nan­do, res­i­dence, said: "The lim­it­ed state of emer­gency will take ef­fect from mid­night tonight (Sun­day.)" A tough-talk­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, backed by act­ing Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Gen­er­al Ken­rick Ma­haraj, Com­mand­ing Of­fi­cer of the Army Col An­tho­ny Phillips-Spencer, Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Stephen Williams and Pris­ons Com­mis­sion­er John Rougi­er, said: "This is not an easy de­ci­sion to make. It is not a light thing to trig­ger Sec­tion 8:1 of our Con­sti­tu­tion, but when it is that the cir­cum­stances call for it, I do be­lieve that as lead­ers of our na­tion it is our du­ty first and fore­most to give the great­est pro­tec­tion we can to our cit­i­zens."

The Prime Min­is­ter linked the crime surge to the re­cent suc­cess of the po­lice in the seizure of large drug hauls, the val­ues of which had been in the ex­cess of $20 mil­lion. "These large sums of mon­ey do not just dis­ap­pear from the drug trade with­out con­se­quences and in some of the cas­es now oc­cur­ring, the ques­tion isn't just what is caus­ing it but what do we do? How do we deal with it?" she said. "I do not be­lieve that any­one of us can con­tin­ue to wake up every morn­ing to see the blood of our chil­dren on the soil of our land and so there comes a time I be­lieve in the a his­to­ry of a na­tion when we have to take very strong ac­tion, very de­ci­sive ac­tion," she de­clared. The Prime Min­is­ter, speak­ing briefly with re­porters af­ter the brief­ing, said the 11 mur­ders in one day was the break­ing point for the Gov­ern­ment.

She dis­missed the no­tion that crime was out of con­trol, say­ing, how­ev­er, "it is a cause for con­cern." She said: "The cur­rent crime spree dic­tates that more must be done and stronger ac­tion must be em­ployed now. "The sit­u­a­tion can­not con­tin­ue like this with­out the re­sponse that is com­men­su­rate with the wan­ton acts of vi­o­lence and law­less­ness," the PM said. "It must be a re­sponse as well that halts the cur­rent spike in gang ac­tiv­i­ty and crime in gen­er­al in the short­est pos­si­ble time." While she shied away from re­veal­ing the ar­eas iden­ti­fied as hot spots, the T&T Guardian un­der­stands that 11 com­mu­ni­ties have been named in the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the procla­ma­tion, to­geth­er with the emer­gency pow­ers reg­u­la­tions, was sent to Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards for his sig­na­ture. She said she spoke to Richards and he had agreed to sign the doc­u­ments which will "set out in more de­tail the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency." The reg­u­la­tions, she said, "will con­strict or re­strict the am­bit of the emer­gency pow­ers be­ing ex­er­cised by the po­lice and the mil­i­tary." She said the emer­gency pow­ers cur­few or­der would al­so be put in­to place which would im­ple­ment cur­fews with­in the des­ig­nat­ed ar­eas for cer­tain pe­ri­ods.

Lat­er to­day, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy is ex­pect­ed to hold a me­dia brief­ing where he will give up­dates terms of the state of emer­gency, how it will work and the spe­cif­ic ar­eas that will be af­fect­ed. The Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vides for three days for a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency and a no­ti­fi­ca­tion to the Speak­er of the House for 15 days. Any pe­ri­od over 15 days will re­quire the call­ing of Par­lia­ment in­to ses­sion for ap­proval. She said the state of emer­gency would be re­viewed on a dai­ly ba­sis.

What the Pres­i­dent signed

The procla­ma­tion is­sued by Pres­i­dent of the Re­pub­lic of T&T George Maxwell Richards de­clar­ing a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency was read by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last night, af­ter an emer­gency meet­ing with the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. The procla­ma­tion read:

"It is en­act­ed by Sec­tion 8: 1 of the Con­sti­tu­tion that the Pres­i­dent may from time to time make a procla­ma­tion that a state of pub­lic emer­gency ex­ists and by Sec­tion 8: 2 of the Con­sti­tu­tion that the procla­ma­tion made by the Pres­i­dent shall not be ef­fec­tive, un­less it con­tains a de­c­la­ra­tion that the Pres­i­dent is sat­is­fied that ac­tion has been tak­en or is im­me­di­ate­ly threat­ened by any per­son of such a na­ture and so ex­ten­sive a scale as to be like­ly to en­dan­ger the pub­lic safe­ty or to de­prive the com­mu­ni­ty of sup­plies and ser­vices es­sen­tial to life.

And now there­fore I, George Maxwell Richards, Pres­i­dent in pur­suant of the pow­ers con­ferred in me by Sec­tion 8:1 of the Con­sti­tu­tion here­by de­clare that I am sat­is­fied ac­tion has been tak­en or is im­me­di­ate­ly threat­ened by per­sons or bod­ies of per­sons of such a na­ture, and so ex­ten­sive a scale, as to be like­ly to en­dan­ger the pub­lic safe­ty to de­prive the com­mu­ni­ty of sup­plies or ser­vice, and a state of pub­lic emer­gency ex­ists in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

7:30am UP­DATE:

AG Anand Ram­lo­gan: Af­fect­ed ar­eas are the fol­low­ing...

- City of Port of Spain

- City of San Fer­nan­do

- Bor­ough of Ari­ma

- Bor­ough of Ch­agua­nas

- Diego Mar­tin Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

- San Juan Laven­tille Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion

Cur­few will be in ef­fect in these ar­eas be­tween 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Spe­cial con­sid­er­a­tion and arrange­ments will be made for those who work nights and in the ear­ly hours of the morn­ing.