Gail Alexan­der

The Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the state of emer­gency five days af­ter a $20 mil­lion drug bust was car­ried out on Au­gust 16 and the threat of gang war­fare arose. The date of the drug bust was giv­en by Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards in his state­ment on the rea­sons for the state of emer­gency which was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar last Sun­day. The Gov­ern­ment has said that the ini­tia­tive avert­ed an im­pend­ing "cri­sis" and had cit­ed the drug bust and pos­si­ble reprisals and gang war­fare that could have flowed from this. Richards' state­ment was pre­sent­ed to House Speak­er Wade Mark on Thurs­day, ac­cord­ing to con­sti­tu­tion­al re­quire­ment Sec­tion 9 (1).

It was sub­se­quent­ly cir­cu­lat­ed to mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. The state­ment will be de­bat­ed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from 10 am next week Fri­day as is con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly re­quired. At that sit­ting, the Gov­ern­ment will say whether the state of emer­gency-15 days in the first in­stance-will be ex­tend­ed. Richards, in his state­ment, said:

"The coun­try has been wit­ness­ing with­in re­cent times the tragedy of mul­ti­ple mur­ders and an up­surge in gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence. "Dur­ing the pe­ri­od 19-21 Au­gust 2011, there were 11 mur­ders for this year. "Our crim­i­nal in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies shows that the es­ca­la­tion in vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty is linked to re­cent suc­cess­es of the po­lice in cer­tain drug traf­fick­ing and in­ter­dic­tion ex­er­cis­es which led to the seizure of large quan­ti­ties of drugs with a street val­ue of sev­er­al mil­lions of dol­lars. Drugs with a street val­ue in ex­cess of $20 mil­lion were seized in just one raid on Au­gust 16, 2011."There is the re­al risk of reprisal and re­tal­i­a­tion by gangs that will com­pro­mise and en­dan­ger pub­lic safe­ty, law and or­der. "In­no­cent cit­i­zens go­ing about their dai­ly busi­ness have lost their lives as a re­sult of the ac­tions of these gangs mere­ly be­ing at the wrong place at the wrong time.

"The present un­prece­dent­ed es­ca­la­tion in mur­ders and oth­er se­ri­ous acts of vi­o­lence and law­less­ness war­rants the adop­tion of more de­ci­sive and stronger ac­tion to en­sure the safe­ty of the pub­lic. "There is ur­gent need to ad­dress this threat to pub­lic safe­ty and the up­surge in vi­o­lent crime in the short­est pos­si­ble time. "The ma­jor­i­ty of these mur­ders are oc­cur­ring in spec­i­fied ge­o­graph­i­cal ar­eas across Trinidad and To­ba­go, of­ten com­mit­ted by mem­bers of crim­i­nal gangs or per­sons in­volved in the drug and arms trade. "The sta­tis­tics from the Po­lice Ser­vice re­veal that the mur­ders are dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly oc­cur­ring in cer­tain ge­o­graph­i­cal ar­eas where these gangs are based. "As a con­se­quence of these events and facts, I am sat­is­fied that the na­ture and ex­tent of these events en­dan­gers pub­lic safe­ty to an ex­tent that war­rants the de­c­la­ra­tion of a state of emer­gency."

Next week Fri­day's House de­bate on Richards' state­ment will be led off by the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al as well as Op­po­si­tion Leader Kei­th Row­ley and chief whip Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, each side in­di­cat­ed yes­ter­day. Mc­Don­ald said PNM MPs were all ex­pect­ed to be present since the sit­u­a­tion in­volved a state of emer­gency. Gov­ern­ment has stat­ed that the state of emer­gency could be ex­tend­ed for up to a max­i­mum of six months-in two three-months pe­ri­od-by sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty vote.

This will not re­quire Op­po­si­tion PNM sup­port. To ex­tend the state of emer­gency be­yond six months, how­ev­er, a three-fifth ma­jor­i­ty vote, in­volv­ing Op­po­si­tion sup­port will be nec­es­sary. The PNM has said that the Gov­ern­ment could have con­duct­ed its search and seizure and ar­rests via An­ti-Gang leg­is­la­tion rather than in­vok­ing a state of emer­gency.