The state of emer­gency, which was im­posed on Trinidad and To­ba­go on Au­gust 21, came to an end last night with the cit­i­zens of this coun­try in a state of con­fu­sion as to why it was called, what it achieved and, most par­tic­u­lar­ly, whether there was any va­lid­i­ty to the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot which was re­vealed to the na­tion and the world on No­vem­ber 23.The Gov­ern­ment's ex­pla­na­tion for the de­c­la­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency was that the de­ci­sion was based on avail­able in­tel­li­gence that a clear threat to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­ist­ed.If there was such a threat, the Gov­ern­ment has been hard-pressed to pro­duce the ev­i­dence of it. But what is clear is that the state of emer­gency, and the cur­few that ac­com­pa­nied it for a sig­nif­i­cant pe­ri­od, did have a sig­nif­i­cant im­pact on lev­els of crime, which were threat­en­ing to get to­tal­ly out of hand.

In a state­ment de­liv­ered on No­vem­ber 7, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar out­lined the fact that there were 46 homi­cides com­mit­ted in T&T one month pri­or to the de­c­la­ra­tion of the state of emer­gency, while there were 18 for the one-month pe­ri­od fol­low­ing the emer­gency de­c­la­ra­tion and cur­few. This was a re­duc­tion of just over 60 per cent.Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter's sta­tis­tics, in the same pe­ri­ods there was a re­duc­tion of just over 51 per cent in se­ri­ous crimes such as rob­bery with ag­gra­va­tion, house­break­ing and rape, while mo­tor ve­hi­cle lar­ce­ny showed a de­crease of just over 73 per cent.What is wor­ry­ing is that with the state of emer­gency over, the coun­try's na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus is yet to in­form the na­tion about the mea­sures that have been im­ple­ment­ed or will be im­ple­ment­ed to main­tain the pres­sure on the crim­i­nal el­e­ment.

Clear­ly, there is need for the Gov­ern­ment to com­mis­sion an in­de­pen­dent, high-lev­el as­sess­ment of the ex­tent to which the out­comes that were achieved by the state of emer­gency matched the ex­pec­ta­tions of both the pol­i­cy­mak­ers and the pub­lic.If the pri­ma­ry pur­pose of the state of emer­gency was to quell a dan­ger­ous crime sit­u­a­tion more than to ad­dress a spe­cif­ic na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat, the Gov­ern­ment should be brave enough to make this plain to the pub­lic.The Gov­ern­ment clear­ly has some ex­plain­ing to do, as well, with re­gard to the al­leged as­sas­si­na­tion plot that Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials claimed tar­get­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and two oth­er Cab­i­net min­is­ters.In our news­pa­per yes­ter­day, there was a re­port which quot­ed the par­tic­u­lars of the de­ten­tion or­der that was filed against the man iden­ti­fied as be­ing the mas­ter­mind be­hind the plot to desta­bilise the coun­try and cause ma­jor pan­ic.

Giv­en the seizure of arms, am­mu­ni­tion and items of cloth­ing re­sem­bling that worn by mem­bers of T&T's pro­tec­tive ser­vices, there ap­pears to be some cred­i­bil­i­ty to the ex­is­tence of this plot. And if the Gov­ern­ment has enough ev­i­dence to bring cred­i­ble charges against the al­leged mas­ter­mind and his as­so­ciates, they should do so.What has left the pub­lic con­fused is whether there ex­ists any ev­i­dence link­ing this plot to desta­bilise with the plot to kill.If there is no ev­i­dence, the Prime Min­is­ter has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to root out of her gov­ern­ment those who mis­led and trau­ma­tised a na­tion, be­smirched its in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion for po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty and dam­aged its prospects of at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al in­vest­ment in the fu­ture.It may be that those who are guilty of "an evil, de­vi­ous act of trea­son against the peo­ple of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go" may not be those who were de­tained for 12 days, end­ing last night.