Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Ch­agua­nas West MP Di­nesh Ram­bal­ly is again call­ing on Gov­ern­ment to repa­tri­ate cit­i­zens held in camps in Syr­ia now, and to bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment that will ex­pe­dite the process and en­sure their safe­ty up­on re­turn­ing home.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Ram­bal­ly said the lack of leg­isla­tive sup­port is ham­per­ing the re­turn of women and chil­dren stuck in var­i­ous Syr­i­an camps, adding their sit­u­a­tion is wors­en­ing with the over­throw of Syr­i­an Pres­i­dent Bashar al-As­sad over the week­end.

On Sun­day, rebel forces took con­trol of the Mid­dle East­ern coun­try, end­ing a 24-year rule by al-As­sad. Ram­bal­ly, who has been cham­pi­oning the call for repa­tri­a­tion in par­lia­ment for the past four years, said the shift in regime may not be in the best in­ter­est of those stuck in Syr­i­an camps.

He said the UN has re­peat­ed­ly called on Gov­ern­ment to es­tab­lish the nec­es­sary frame­work to en­sure the safe­ty of na­tion­als be­ing repa­tri­at­ed from in Syr­ia and Turkey. “If we are go­ing to repa­tri­ate them, we have to know that the wider se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns of our cit­i­zen­ry lo­cal­ly is first and fore­most. I have nev­er said oth­er­wise. And that is why a bill is need­ed.”

Ram­bal­ly said his con­cern is that the chil­dren now in the camps will be­come adults be­fore they are repa­tri­at­ed. He stressed that the is­sues in re­turn­ing na­tion­als is not nov­el to T&T, as oth­er de­vel­oped coun­tries al­so strug­gled with the repa­tri­at­ing their na­tion­als.

Af­ter the col­lapse of the Is­lam­ic State, for­mer ISIS and ISIL in 2019, T&T cit­i­zens were among over 50,000 peo­ple held at camps in Syr­ia. Most of the men who left T&T to join ISIS were killed in ar­eas of con­flict and the sur­viv­ing fight­ers were tak­en to Syr­ia and Iraq, along with women and chil­dren.

A Jan­u­ary UN re­port stat­ed that in Ju­ly last year, UN ex­pert Fion­nu­ala Ní Aoláin vis­it­ed the al-Hol, al-Hawl and al-Roj camps and oth­er de­ten­tion cen­tres. At the time, there was an es­ti­mat­ed 90 Trinida­di­ans, in­clud­ing at least 21 women and 56 chil­dren. The cit­i­zens have been im­pris­oned since 2019.

Last year, Ram­bal­ly said he was will­ing to go to Syr­ia to repa­tri­ate those stuck there. Asked about this yes­ter­day, he said the Gov­ern­ment’s for­ma­tion of the Repa­tri­a­tion Com­mit­tee, head­ed by Nizam Mo­hammed, had elim­i­nat­ed his need to go there.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day on his team’s progress on repa­tri­at­ing Tri­nis from Syr­ia, Mo­hammed said he was await­ing the all-clear from the Task Force Nightin­gale, a com­mit­tee set up un­der the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty in 2018 by then-na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Stu­art Young to un­der­take a sim­i­lar ex­er­cise.

The team in­clud­ed the TTPS; the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit; the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit: An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Desk of Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs; Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit; An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing/Com­bat­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism Com­pli­ance Unit, In­tel­li­gence Ser­vices; Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty and the TTPS’ Ter­ror­ist In­ter­dic­tion Unit.

Mo­hammed said the Nightin­gale unit told him they too were wait­ing on the leg­is­la­tion be­fore they could act. Calls to Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Camille Robin­son-Reg­is and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour on the sta­tus of the leg­is­la­tion to deal with the is­sue went unan­swered.

Al­so con­tact­ed on the is­sue, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne. Browne said it was a mat­ter for the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. How­ev­er, Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds did not re­spond.

Broth­ers re­turn from Turkey

The call for Gov­ern­ment to act on repa­tri­at­ing cit­i­zens from the Mid­dle-East comes af­ter three broth­ers re­turned home re­cent­ly af­ter spend­ing eight years strand­ed in Turkey.

Khalid, 26, Faisal, 22, and Say­eed Ab­dul-Haqq, 24, left the coun­try in 2016 and re­turned on No­vem­ber 15. The men re­port­ed to T&T au­thor­i­ties that they lost their trav­el doc­u­ments in 2018 and spent the last six years try­ing to get home.

Their broth­er Tariq Ab­dul-Haqq, who joined ISIS af­ter leav­ing the coun­try in 2014, was killed in a fight with op­pos­ing forces. Tariq went with his wife and sis­ter.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed the broth­ers’ Lopinot home twice and their Ch­agua­nas busi­ness­es hop­ing to speak with the men but all at­tempts were fu­tile. Calls to their broth­er and aunt were al­so un­suc­cess­ful in reach­ing them.

The Ab­dul-Haqqs’ fa­ther, Yaqub Ab­dul-Haqq, died in 2013 af­ter ac­ci­den­tal­ly shoot­ing him­self in the groin at a mosque in St Joseph with his li­censed firearm.

Com­ment­ing on the re­turn of the broth­ers, he said with the prop­er leg­is­la­tion, that would have been iden­ti­fied by the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties and if any mon­i­tor­ing was need­ed, it would be done.

“These peo­ple can very well some­how find their way back to Trinidad and To­ba­go. How do we pro­tect our cit­i­zen­ry know­ing that they need to rein­te­grate in a man­ner that en­sures the se­cu­ri­ty of the wider so­ci­ety?”

He added that his stance has nev­er been to char­ter a plane and bring every­one home at once but de­vel­op poli­cies for re­turn and rein­te­gra­tion and that is why he ad­vo­cates for the re­turn of the women and chil­dren im­me­di­ate­ly.

“We don’t want them (chil­dren) to be­come rad­i­calised over there be­cause the longer they stay, the like­li­hood of them be­com­ing rad­i­calised is greater.”

In his me­dia re­lease, Ram­bal­ly ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of pussy­foot­ing on the top­ic of repa­tri­a­tion. High­light­ing the promise of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley dur­ing the Bud­get de­bate to bring leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment, Ram­bal­ly said noth­ing will come of that promise as Par­lia­ment is now on Christ­mas break.

“The Gov­ern­ment must act swift­ly by en­gag­ing in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, in­clud­ing UNICEF and the Red Cross, and es­tab­lish­ing se­cure chan­nels to ex­pe­dite the safe re­turn of these chil­dren. Their wel­fare can­not be left in lim­bo. I im­plore the Gov­ern­ment to pri­ori­tise this is­sue be­fore fur­ther com­pli­ca­tions arise, risk­ing the lives and fu­tures of these vul­ner­a­ble young cit­i­zens. We have a moral and con­sti­tu­tion­al du­ty to pro­tect our chil­dren, no mat­ter where they are. Let us ful­fil it with­out fur­ther de­lay.”