Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to im­ple­ment a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency was trig­gered by last Thurs­day's killings in Jon­estown, Ari­ma, where four men were shot dead and three were in­jured by two gun­men. He said the Gov­ern­ment was placed in an em­bar­rass­ing sit­u­a­tion and re­act­ed by in­sti­tut­ing a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency. Row­ley said if the Gov­ern­ment had the in­ter­est of the wider pop­u­la­tion, it would have used the pro­vi­sions in the An­ti-Gang Act to act against crim­i­nals. "If Gov­ern­ment was act­ing against crim­i­nals and tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion the ef­fects that a state of emer­gency would have on the wider pop­u­la­tion, it would have used the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion and all its wider pro­vi­sions," he said.

Row­ley spoke for close to 60 min­utes on events since the state of emer­gency was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sun­day. He said his ini­tial re­ac­tion to her an­nounce­ment was one of con­cern and that he de­lib­er­ate­ly tem­pered his re­sponse at the time by say­ing he did not un­der­stand what was be­ing ad­vanced; and un­til the Gov­ern­ment clar­i­fied its po­si­tion and ob­jec­tives, he would be bet­ter able to speak out. He was ad­dress­ing re­porters at a news con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Op­po­si­tion Leader, Charles Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. Al­so present were Op­po­si­tion MPs Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald and Nile­ung Hy­po­lite and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ter­rance Deyals­ingh.

Row­ley said: "This (killings) hap­pened to oc­cur at a time when Gov­ern­ment was en­gag­ing in an ag­gres­sive pub­lic re­la­tions cam­paign that crime was on the de­cline, mur­ders were down and they were com­par­ing year on year...tak­ing cred­it for their per­for­mance by com­par­ing 2010 to 2011. "And in the midst of that ag­gres­sive cam­paign seek­ing ku­dos from the pop­u­la­tion, this (killings) hap­pened," he added. He said the Gov­ern­ment's re­sponse was to pro­tect its im­age and not seek the in­ter­est of the pop­u­la­tion. He added that the Gov­ern­ment chose the op­tion of a lim­it­ed state of emer­gency with a se­ries of down­sides in­stead of the way of leg­is­la­tion.

He said the Op­po­si­tion was de­mand­ing that what was put in place by the Par­lia­ment for the peo­ple was what they should get. "Sec­tion 12 of the An­ti-Gang Act which was not in ex­is­tence when many per­sons were talk­ing about a state of emer­gency," Row­ley said. "This Act came in­to be­ing in 2011. "The work was done in 2010 by the Par­lia­ment, Gov­ern­ment the Op­po­si­tion and In­de­pen­dents. "So we now have a tool to do ex­act­ly what the Prime Min­is­ter has said is go­ing to be done now un­der a state of emer­gency." Ac­cord­ing to the Act, a po­lice of­fi­cer may ar­rest with­out a war­rant; may en­ter with­out a war­rant and search any place or de­tain a per­son with­out a war­rant.

Row­ley, how­ev­er, said the leg­is­la­tion was to tar­get gang mem­bers and crim­i­nals; to spare law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and to keep the econ­o­my in­tact. Asked if it were wise to hold dis­cus­sions with the Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley said: "The Prime Min­is­ter is not will­ing to hold any di­a­logue with me and it is not a ques­tion of me and the Prime Min­is­ter. "The Prime Min­is­ter has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for the coun­try's ad­min­is­tra­tion," he added.

"We took it up­on our­selves to of­fer but we were re­buffed in the most bom­bas­tic way." He said by us­ing a state of emer­gency, the Gov­ern­ment was putting a damper on trade union ac­tiv­i­ty; ten­sion in the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice and civ­il un­rest by cit­i­zens. "They get all these as bonus­es un­der a state of emer­gency and these bonus­es weren't avail­able un­der the use of the An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion and that is the think­ing, method­ol­o­gy and the prac­tice of the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go," he said.