Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's an­nounce­ment on Sun­day night that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil had de­cid­ed to im­ple­ment a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency would have come as a sur­prise to many peo­ple. This was one of the most im­por­tant de­ci­sions that the Gov­ern­ment, in gen­er­al, and the Prime Min­is­ter, in par­tic­u­lar, has tak­en. In im­ple­ment­ing a state of emer­gency, the Gov­ern­ment has giv­en po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers en­hanced pow­ers to search peo­ple and seize goods with­out a war­rant. The state of emer­gency gives the armed forces the abil­i­ty to de­tain or ar­rest al­leged crim­i­nals whose ac­tiv­i­ties may have brought them to the at­ten­tion of the au­thor­i­ties. The Prime Min­is­ter's de­ci­sion-and it would have been her's to make as the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil-was tak­en in the con­text of a par­tic­u­lar­ly brazen and cal­lous mur­der spree in a com­mu­ni­ty called Jon­estown in Ari­ma on Thurs­day night. In that in­ci­dent, two gun­men car­ry­ing high-pow­ered ma­chine guns sprayed more than 50 bul­lets in a par­lour.

That would have been the straw that broke the camel's back but it would on­ly have been the cul­mi­na­tion of in­creas­ing­ly brazen acts of vi­o­lence per­pe­trat­ed against law-abid­ing cit­i­zens of the coun­try. Clear­ly, the on­slaught against the cit­i­zen­ry re­quired some firm and de­ci­sive ac­tion from the Gov­ern­ment-if on­ly to send a mes­sage to the killers that the State is ca­pa­ble of ac­tion. Some­times in a cri­sis sit­u­a­tion, lead­er­ship de­mands ac­tion and tough de­ci­sion-mak­ing be­cause to do noth­ing, or to con­tin­ue with the sta­tus quo, is un­ac­cept­able. It is clear that fol­low­ing the Jon­estown Mas­sacre, as this news­pa­per la­belled Thurs­day night's mur­der spree in Ari­ma, the Gov­ern­ment could not al­low the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion of ab­solute law­less­ness and crim­i­nal­i­ty to con­tin­ue. In re­sponse to the loud out­cry from the cit­i­zen­ry for the Gov­ern­ment to take some ac­tion, the Prime Min­is­ter de­cid­ed that the most ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion would be this state of emer­gency.

The cit­i­zen­ry, there­fore, have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to give this lat­est crime-fight­ing mea­sure an op­por­tu­ni­ty to work-even in the con­text of the con­sid­er­able in­con­ve­nience that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the lim­it­ed state of emer­gency will cause. And there is no doubt about the in­con­ve­nience and the im­pact that the mea­sure will have on T&T's pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. The emer­gency pow­ers reg­u­la­tions pre­scribe that no one should be in the ar­eas de­fined as hot spots with­in the cur­few hours with­out a per­mit in writ­ing from the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or such oth­er per­son or au­thor­i­ty. There is lit­tle doubt that the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the cur­few in the coun­try's three main cities of Port-of-Spain, Ari­ma and San Fer­nan­do will have a se­ri­ous im­pact on the coun­try's thriv­ing en­ter­tain­ment busi­ness. There will al­so be a neg­a­tive im­pact on the mul­ti-shift op­er­a­tions at some of the coun­try's man­u­fac­tur­ers and in the petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor and the coun­try's rep­u­ta­tion as a busi­ness-friend­ly des­ti­na­tion for in­vest­ment in the petro­chem­i­cal sec­tor may al­so take a beat­ing.

But this is on­ly for a lim­it­ed time and in lim­it­ed and de­fined parts of the coun­try.

At the end of the day, the pop­u­la­tion's hope is that the end re­sult of this lim­it­ed state of emer­gency is a sig­nif­i­cant re­duc­tion in the lev­els of crim­i­nal­i­ty in the coun­try. It is the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the armed forces-who have been giv­en free rein to go af­ter and ap­pre­hend the drug lords and Mr Bigs-to en­sure that the ac­tion of the Gov­ern­ment yields the ap­pro­pri­ate and ex­pect­ed re­sults. But the ef­forts of the coun­try's po­lice and sol­diers in the next fort­night are like­ly to come to naught if they do not have the sup­port of the cit­i­zen­ry-who are un­der so much pres­sure from the crim­i­nals. In con­clu­sion, we would like to recog­nise and salute the ef­forts of the po­lice of­fi­cers and sol­diers, who have been called up­on by the Gov­ern­ment to sac­ri­fice time away from their loved ones in this pe­ri­od. We call on them to ex­er­cise their en­hanced pow­ers with some mea­sure of dis­cre­tion and fair­ness.