Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day that the as­sas­si­na­tion plot against her and three cab­i­net min­is­ters might have been "per­son­al in some re­spect," but it was aimed at to­tal­ly desta­bil­is­ing T&T. The Prime Min­is­ter was speak­ing with re­porters at her con­stituen­cy of­fice in Pe­nal yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, af­ter the launch of a Min­istry of the Peo­ple char­i­ty project. There was tight se­cu­ri­ty at the of­fice dur­ing the launch. Every­one en­ter­ing the com­pound was sub­ject to a scan and search by se­cu­ri­ty staff. Sol­diers with guns and com­mu­ni­ca­tion gear were sta­tioned at strate­gic points around the con­stituen­cy of­fice, while un­der­cov­er of­fi­cers pa­trolled the SS Erin Road.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said de­spite the as­sas­si­na­tion plot, her Gov­ern­ment had no in­ten­tion of con­tin­u­ing the state of emer­gency be­yond De­cem­ber 5. "At this mo­ment, the se­cu­ri­ty forces have not ad­vised for a con­tin­u­a­tion of the state of emer­gency," she said. "As we speak, there is no in­ten­tion of ex­tend­ing the state of emer­gency or im­pos­ing a cur­few...We will be ad­vised on a day-to-day ba­sis. "Should we have to do that, we would have to go back to Par­lia­ment for ap­proval." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she would con­tin­ue to act on the in­struc­tions of the se­cu­ri­ty forces. "Any threat to the se­cu­ri­ty of the na­tion is my con­cern," she said.

"We are fol­low­ing the ad­vice giv­en by the se­cu­ri­ty forces and we are putting the con­trol mech­a­nisms to en­sure there is safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty, law and or­der and this is the best we can do." Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, in­sist­ing she had no rea­son to fab­ri­cate the threat, nor was she about to pre­ma­ture­ly di­vulge de­tails of the plot. "I will take no chances and no risks be­cause it will be reck­less, fool­hardy and 'dotish' for us to di­vulge any fur­ther de­tails on this as­sas­si­na­tion plot," she said. "A threat to as­sas­si­nate might be per­son­al in some re­spects, but it is a threat to the State to desta­bilise the na­tion and that is dan­ger­ous to the en­tire na­tion."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of cre­at­ing pan­ic and hys­te­ria "by cre­at­ing false­hoods in or­der to gain their own po­lit­i­cal ends." Re­fer­ring to Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, she said: "It is very sad­den­ing in a way that here is some­one who pur­ports to be an al­ter­na­tive Prime Min­is­ter and he is say­ing should the se­cu­ri­ty forces ad­vise him of a mat­ter and make rec­om­men­da­tions, he will not act on those rec­om­men­da­tions." She al­so said Man­ning's claims that she had lost cred­i­bil­i­ty showed that the San Fer­nan­do East MP was "grasp­ing at straws." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Mr Man­ning wants to be where I am...He wants to be the Prime Min­is­ter and he will grab at any straw.

"His cred­i­bil­i­ty was to­tal­ly lost and the pop­u­la­tion vot­ed on that mat­ter," she added. "The pop­u­la­tion will have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to vote on our cred­i­bil­i­ty in due course." Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tend­ed that while Man­ning had list­ed ten mishaps of her gov­er­nance, she could list a thou­sand mis­steps of his gov­er­nance. "I be­lieve we do have the sup­port of the ma­jor­i­ty of pop­u­la­tion and we will do the best we can to serve the pop­u­la­tion," she said. The PM said her health was ex­cel­lent and she had full con­fi­dence in the se­cu­ri­ty arrange­ments made for her and some mem­bers of her Cab­i­net. She al­so said she had no in­for­ma­tion about two Is­raelis who were on the run, but was due to meet with Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy last night.