RHON­DOR DOWLAT

Se­nior Re­porter

rhon­dor.dowlat@guardian.co.tt

For­mer po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith and strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Garvin Heer­ah ex­pressed con­cern about the grow­ing chal­lenges with­in the TTDF. And they are call­ing for a re­view of the re­cruit­ment, de­ploy­ment and train­ing prac­tices in the TTDF.

Heer­ah called for high­er re­cruit­ment pro­to­cols, with prop­er vet­ting and back­ground checks, as well as en­vi­ron­men­tal as­sess­ments, to en­sure po­ten­tial re­cruits have no links to crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

He al­so raised con­cerns about as­sign­ing De­fence Force per­son­nel to law en­force­ment roles out­side their ar­eas of ex­per­tise.

“These men and women are spe­cial­ists in ar­eas like air­craft main­te­nance, naval op­er­a­tions, and tac­ti­cal units. But they’ve been tak­en out of these spe­cial­ist en­vi­ron­ments and placed on the streets along­side po­lice of­fi­cers for law en­force­ment du­ties,” he said.

Heer­ah said this ex­pos­es sol­diers to new in­flu­ences and in­creas­es the risk of them be­ing “lured or in­flu­enced in­to crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties.”

Grif­fith echoed Heer­ah’s con­cerns and un­der­scored the crit­i­cal role the TTDF plays in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“I’ve spent 17 years in the De­fence Force, and I can tell you that we must con­tin­ue to main­tain a strong De­fence Force, not just be­cause it’s in our Con­sti­tu­tion, but be­cause of the vi­tal role they play in pro­tect­ing the coun­try,” Grif­fith said.

Grif­fith de­scribed the cur­rent state of the TTDF as be­ing “on stand­by,” with many mem­bers of the Coast Guard, Air Guard and army un­der­utilised, with no ves­sels, air­craft, or ma­jor op­er­a­tions to en­gage in.

“The Coast Guard has over 1,000 sailors but no ves­sels to se­cure the coast­line. The Air Guard has 500 per­son­nel but no air­craft and 2,500 sol­diers are sta­tioned in bar­racks, es­sen­tial­ly wait­ing. We’re not get­ting val­ue for the hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars be­ing spent on the De­fence Force,” he said.

Grif­fith warned that with­out prop­er guid­ance, sol­diers are at risk of falling in­to crim­i­nal be­hav­iour—a trend seen in re­cent months.

Be­tween Jan­u­ary and Sep­tem­ber, sev­er­al TTDF mem­bers were in­volved in se­ri­ous crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty, in­clud­ing a sol­dier charged with the mur­der of a moth­er and daugh­ter and a lance cor­po­ral ar­rest­ed for lar­ce­ny.

Ear­li­er this week, a TTDF ves­sel cap­tain was ar­rest­ed for trans­port­ing in­di­vid­u­als with­out visas or pass­ports. Po­lice said he can face up to 34 charges.

Heer­ah and Grif­fith agree that im­me­di­ate re­forms are need­ed, start­ing with lead­er­ship.

“We need to en­sure our most im­por­tant as­set—our hu­man re­sources—are be­ing utilised to their full po­ten­tial,” Heer­ah said.

Grif­fith said: “The De­fence Force is more than just a stand­by force wait­ing for war. They are a cru­cial part of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. We need to use them ef­fec­tive­ly, not just leave them idle,” he said.

He added that there is a need for bet­ter train­ing when TTDF mem­bers work along­side the po­lice.

“Those who sup­port the po­lice need to be prop­er­ly trained to pre­vent abus­es of pow­er. It’s not dif­fi­cult. We’ve al­ready trained pre­cept­ed reg­i­men­tal po­lice to have the same pow­ers of ar­rest as se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cers,” he not­ed.

Heer­ah and Grif­fith are adamant that TTDF re­forms must hap­pen now.

“We’re spend­ing vast amounts of mon­ey but with­out the right lead­er­ship and train­ing, we’re not get­ting the re­sults the coun­try de­serves,” Grif­fith con­clud­ed.