Af­ter 24 hours of spec­u­la­tion, ques­tions, doubts and deep con­cerns, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs have come for­ward with state­ments about the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plots against "mem­bers of my Gov­ern­ment and my­self."Un­der­stand­ably, the Com­mis­sion­er could not give de­tails at this time about the plot but he did say that a dozen peo­ple or so have been ar­rest­ed and it must be pre­sumed are be­ing ques­tioned by the po­lice to get from them the el­e­ments of the plot. Most im­por­tant­ly, those said to be be­hind the con­ceiv­ing of this al­leged at­tempt to kill the Prime Min­is­ter and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al.

The Prime Min­is­ter made it quite clear that her con­clu­sion, and one would have to say by ex­ten­sion the se­cu­ri­ty forces have con­clud­ed, that the plot has arisen be­cause the state of emer­gency and cur­few have made a se­ri­ous im­pact on drug-re­lat­ed ac­tiv­i­ties. She not­ed that $1.5 bil­lion worth of il­le­gal drugs were seized dur­ing the pe­ri­od of the SoE, with over 13,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion and 173 guns tak­en off the streets.The point be­ing made is that the drug deal­ers and oth­er kinds of crim­i­nals are dead­ly se­ri­ous about their das­tard­ly op­er­a­tions and would be pre­pared to do what they con­sid­er nec­es­sary to pre­vent any fur­ther in­cur­sions in­to their op­er­a­tions.

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, it is well-known that drugs traf­fick­ers "take no pris­on­ers" to en­sure their mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar in­dus­try is not in any way in­ter­fered with. Heads of gov­ern­ment who they per­ceive as be­ing the en­forcers of the an­ti-drug op­er­a­tions are not ex­empt.There­fore any as­sas­si­na­tion plot against the head of Gov­ern­ment and her min­is­ters can­not be tak­en light­ly. Of course we will have to await fur­ther in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the un­fold­ing of the plot as dis­cov­ered and be­ing mon­i­tored by the po­lice to com­ment fur­ther on the se­ri­ous­ness of the al­le­ga­tion.But one of the re­al­ly en­cour­ag­ing as­pects of the news con­fer­ence was the rev­e­la­tion by the Prime Min­is­ter that she had a con­ver­sa­tion on the mat­ter with the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

More­over, that he will be ful­ly briefed on the plot by the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice and there­fore be en­gaged in a con­struc­tive man­ner in the na­tion­al in­ter­est.In ad­di­tion to demon­strat­ing that the Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing se­ri­ous­ly the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty of the du­ly elect­ed Op­po­si­tion, tak­ing the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in­to the con­fi­dence of the Gov­ern­ment and se­cu­ri­ty forces on such a ma­jor is­sue guards against the pos­si­bil­i­ty of op­po­si­tion for the sake of op­po­si­tion.In this re­spect, the Gov­ern­ment and the coun­try know that Dr Row­ley is not like­ly to be eas­i­ly im­pressed with­out de­tails so that the onus will be on the Com­mis­sion­er to come good or run the risk of a fall­out on this mat­ter.

The fact that the Gov­ern­ment chose to brief the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion on sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty de­tails has gone some way in as­suag­ing the wide­spread cyn­i­cism on the ground about the tim­ing and na­ture of the as­sas­si­na­tion plot.On the one hand, if on the ba­sis of what is known and tak­ing the Com­mis­sion­er and the Gov­ern­ment in good faith, this is a se­ri­ous en­croach­ment on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty by drug deal­ers, which can­not be tak­en light­ly.In many coun­tries around the world, in­clud­ing those close by in South Amer­i­ca, drug car­tels have be­come al­most as large as the state. In­deed, a few of them have been re­ferred to as gang­ster states, al­most at the lev­el of be­ing failed states. That there­fore is the pos­si­ble threat in front of us if crim­i­nals could be­lieve they could take out the Prime Min­is­ter and her min­is­ters.