Gail Alexan­der

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brig (ret) John Sandy was the one who rec­om­mend­ed the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a state of emer­gency to the Prime Min­is­ter based on in­tel­li­gence re­ceived. Sandy re­vealed this yes­ter­day as the state of emer­gency rolled past its ninth day with the num­ber of de­tainees at 820 up to yes­ter­day.

Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs who gave this fig­ure said among the 820, 298 per­sons were held for gang re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ty. Sandy, Gibbs and oth­er State of­fi­cials up­dat­ed the me­dia on the state of emer­gency op­er­a­tions fol­low­ing a meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil at the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice yes­ter­day. The PM heads the coun­cil.

On Sun­day, Sandy had said he was not sat­is­fied with the 15 guns so far net­ted in the ex­er­cise. How­ev­er, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had said that day he was sat­is­fied with the 1,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion ob­tained. Ram­lo­gan said the am­mu­ni­tion was more sig­nif­i­cant since crim­i­nals of­ten shared weapons. At yes­ter­day's dai­ly me­dia brief­ing, Sandy's open­ing state­ments re­vealed he was the one who had rec­om­mend­ed the state of emer­gency which he and Ram­lo­gan both de­fend­ed. Sandy said: "Based on the in­for­ma­tion and in­tel­li­gence at our dis­pos­al, I as Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty went to the Prime Min­is­ter and rec­om­mend­ed that we at......(pause) least con­sid­er the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a state of emer­gency." Sandy added, "This was dis­cussed at Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Cab­i­net lev­el. If we were to make on­ly two ar­rests and ac­quire on­ly one firearm, the suc­cess of this ini­tia­tive has noth­ing to do with that, but the fact that the de­ci­sion that we took, has avert­ed a ma­jor cri­sis in T&T."

"I main­tain, had we not gone this route and what we saw was about to hap­pen, had hap­pened, then every per­son would have said we were an ir­re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment." Sandy said seizures and ar­rests "will in no way de­ter­mine the suc­cess or fail­ure" of the state of emer­gency. Ram­lo­gan said he had asked the Po­lice Ser­vice to in­di­cate the to­tal num­ber of guns and am­mu­ni­tion seized, not on­ly in the state of emer­gency. Ram­lo­gan said, "For the year pri­or to the state of emer­gency, 231 firearms were seized and 4,356 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion were seized al­so-add that to the 15 guns seized in the state of emer­gency and 1,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion seized now and you'll see we've made a sig­nif­i­cant dent for this year and tak­en a lot of guns off the street." Ram­lo­gan added, "There've been some ma­jor break­throughs and op­er­a­tions thus far have been an un­qual­i­fied suc­cess."

"Of course, there's al­ways room for im­prove­ment. We're nev­er go­ing to be sat­is­fied un­til vi­o­lent crime is erad­i­cat­ed." Ram­lo­gan said that in Ja­maica the ar­rest of gang leader Christo­pher "Dudus" Coke last year had seen crime drop 32 per cent there. He said it showed how the ar­rest of one gang leader could af­fect the over­all crime rate. Asked how T&T can mea­sure the state of emer­gency suc­cess if the rea­sons for it were not ful­ly known, Sandy said he could not dis­close such in­for­ma­tion since it was clas­si­fied.

Asked why the state of emer­gency was im­ple­ment­ed if the state had been suc­cess­ful in tak­ing 231 guns off the street pri­or to the emer­gency Ram­lo­gan said: "I be­lieve that the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who ad­vised that we con­sid­er this (SOE) as an op­tion in re­sponse to what was then an im­mi­nent, clear and present threat and dan­ger to our so­ci­ety, would be the one to an­swer that."

Main­tain­ing that sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion could not be dis­closed Ram­lo­gan said, "If pri­or to the Ju­ly 1990 in­sur­rec­tion pre-emp­tive ac­tion had been tak­en on the in­for­ma­tion that did reach the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices, it would have been avert­ed but they would not have been able to share that with the me­dia." Ram­lo­gan added, "What we can say is that the pre-emp­tive ac­tion tak­en (now) has pre­vent­ed a cri­sis in our so­ci­ety." Ram­lo­gan said it would be a breach of pro­to­col to dis­close clas­si­fied in­for­ma­tion and the Gov­ern­ment would have been crit­i­cised if it had dis­closed this. Ram­lo­gan said the Pres­i­dent's state­ment on the rea­sons for the state of emer­gency was the Gov­ern­ment's of­fi­cial po­si­tion. He said there was no mer­it in claims the state of emer­gency was geared to­ward sti­fling labour protests.

Ram­lo­gan said he felt the state of emer­gency was hav­ing a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact since there had been no gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence or mur­der in T&T since it was im­ple­ment­ed. "This may be the first time in so many years that T&T has gone for an en­tire week with­out a homi­cide of that na­ture... that's wor­thy of note," Ram­lo­gan added. Sandy al­so re­spond­ed to con­cerns about putting gang lead­ers with oth­ers in jail and the po­ten­tial for prob­lems and reprisals if and when those per­sons get out of jail. Sandy said, " It's a con­cern. This morn­ing it was dis­cussed with the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons. Every ef­fort is be­ing tak­en to en­sure prop­er prison ad­min­is­tra­tion is be­ing en­ter­tained with that as­pect." Ram­lo­gan said Gov­ern­ment was work­ing with re­li­gious groups and in im­ple­ment­ing sport­ing ini­tia­tives to give youths op­por­tu­ni­ties fol­low­ing the SOE.

In the past 24 hours since Sun­day:

• 31 more ar­rest­ed;

• 5 on gang re­lat­ed mat­ters;

• 6 drug re­lat­ed;

• 1 cur­few breach;

• 16 se­ri­ous of­fences;

• 2 out­stand­ing war­rants;

• Army op­er­a­tions in Buc­coo, To­ba­go;

• Road­blocks at Glen­coe, Pt Fortin net­ting 36;

• Seizure of cut­lass­es, ba­tons;

• Army seizures of mar­i­jua­na seedlings;

• 9 ar­rest­ed in Mara­cas St Joseph;

• 3 ar­rest­ed for weed in To­co.