Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Dr Amery Browne, is dis­pelling the no­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go has been deemed more dan­ger­ous by the US De­part­ment of State Bu­reau and Con­sular Af­fairs.

Speak­ing at the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee at the Red House in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, Browne said the con­tents of the ad­vi­so­ry had not changed since its last is­suance the pre­vi­ous year.

“The coun­try is as­so­ci­at­ed with a Lev­el 2 trav­el ad­vi­so­ry at this time, par­tic­u­lar ar­eas of Port-of-Spain are as­so­ci­at­ed with a lev­el 4 trav­el ad­vi­so­ry. This is ex­act­ly the same two tiers that ex­ist­ed last year,” Browne said.

On Wednes­day (Oc­to­ber 5), the US State De­part­ment’s site is­sued a state­ment giv­ing a Lev­el 2 ad­vi­so­ry for Trinidad and To­ba­go. How­ev­er, the cap­i­tal city was is­sued a Lev­el 4 ad­vi­so­ry where trav­el is not rec­om­mend­ed. In the re­lease, T&T is la­belled as an area where trav­ellers should “ex­er­cise in­creased cau­tion due to crime, ter­ror­ism and kid­nap­ping.”

Cer­tain ar­eas with­in Port-of-Spain have been black­list­ed for US gov­ern­ment per­son­nel, in­clud­ing Laven­tille, Beetham, Sea Lots, Co­corite and the in­te­ri­or of Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. US gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials are banned from trav­el­ling to down­town Port-of-Spain, the Fort George look­out and all beach­es af­ter hours.

Ac­cord­ing to the ad­vi­so­ry, the is­lands are high­light­ed for the high pos­si­bil­i­ties of “vi­o­lent crime, such as mur­der, rob­bery, as­sault, sex­u­al as­sault, home in­va­sion, kid­nap­ping and gang ac­tiv­i­ty, such as nar­cotics traf­fick­ing.

The re­lease al­so stat­ed that T&T is al­so con­sid­ered sus­cep­ti­ble to ter­ror­ist at­tacks “with lit­tle or no warn­ing” in sev­er­al ar­eas such as “ho­tels, clubs, restau­rants, places of wor­ship...ed­u­ca­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions, air­ports, and oth­er pub­lic ar­eas” to name a few.

Dr Browne end­ed his re­mark on the mat­ter by say­ing that he did not want it per­pe­trat­ed any­where that “there has been a down­grad­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Guardian Me­dia al­so at­tempt­ed to reach out to the US Em­bassy to gain clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the mat­ter and the la­belling of the coun­try. How­ev­er, up to press time no re­spons­es were re­ceived.