Clevon Raphael

Q: Madame Prime Min­is­ter, it is some­what late in the evening and you just ran out of the sit­ting of the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to do this rel­a­tive­ly short in­ter­view so let's get straight down to busi­ness. The coun­try has just emerged from a state of emer­gency which is still gen­er­at­ing a lot of de­bate as a re­sult of sev­er­al is­sues aris­ing out of this mea­sure, par­tic­u­lar­ly the as­sas­si­na­tion plot with some say­ing the Gov­ern­ment has lost a lot of cred­i­bil­i­ty for, and oth­er mat­ters which your ad­min­is­tra­tion has been through so far?

A: (Seat­ed on a plush couch in the Prime Min­is­ter's of­fice in the House on Fri­day evening) Any les­son learnt re­duces the risk of re­gret. That is my phi­los­o­phy. And my ad­min­is­tra­tion learnt well from the at­tempt­ed coup of 1990. There is no po­lit­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tion nor for­tune that can equate with the ur­gent need to ad­dress the need to re­spond when as Prime Min­is­ter, you are in­formed by the Po­lice Ser­vice that there is a clear and def­i­nite threat to the na­tion's se­cu­ri­ty and to the Head of State as well as oth­ers in the Cab­i­net.

Had we done noth­ing and in­no­cent cit­i­zens harmed and the na­tion suf­fer the con­se­quences of ig­nor­ing such threats as was done in 1990, the pic­ture to­day would have been very dif­fer­ent. We act­ed de­ci­sive­ly on the ad­vice giv­en and I stand by that to­day.

Your ad­min­is­tra­tion has been se­vere­ly crit­i­cised on the free­ing of those held un­der the an­ti-gang leg­is­la­tion and the SoE de­tainees?

As for the free­ing of de­tainees, there is a dif­fer­ence be­tween the ev­i­dence that can ex­ist to con­duct an ar­rest and ev­i­dence for con­vic­tion. I am sat­is­fied that the in­tel­li­gence shared with me as Head of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil and Prime Min­is­ter by the po­lice was com­pelling. I am al­so con­fi­dent that the mea­sures tak­en sub­se­quent­ly did avert the plot con­tained in the in­tel­li­gence pro­vid­ed to me. When one ques­tions the cred­i­bil­i­ty of this in­for­ma­tion, one ques­tions the very in­tegri­ty of the in­tel­li­gence of­fi­cers whose du­ty it is to pro­tect and de­fend this na­tion. I am not one who is pre­pared to do so.

In fact, quite the op­po­site, I laud the ef­forts of these pa­tri­ots. The fail­ure to con­vict is an­oth­er is­sue with its own le­gal ram­i­fi­ca­tions. Every sin­gle day peo­ple are set free from ar­rest; some in­no­cent and oth­ers, un­for­tu­nate­ly, guilty. No sys­tem is per­fect. But that is what our democ­ra­cy, that iron­i­cal­ly some threat­en, is all about.

Aris­ing out of the free­ing of the de­tainees do you think, Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, there is now the need for a re­vamp­ing of the coun­try's se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus?

(Leaf­ing through some pa­pers in a red fold­er on her lap) Iron­i­cal­ly, the free­ing of the de­tainees is a demon­stra­tion that even un­der an SoE the sys­tem of jus­tice func­tions. We took an ag­gres­sive ap­proach to deal­ing with crime but we es­tab­lished a Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty. The fact that some of those ar­rest­ed were re­leased by the courts proves that at the end of the day the sys­tem is work­ing well. In some cas­es, sus­pects got off on a tech­ni­cal­i­ty de­spite ev­i­dence, but the law pre­vails, as it must.

As for the na­tion's se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, there is con­stant need to re­vise the struc­ture and the way this op­er­ates and to re­think ap­proach­es all the time. It is a con­stant state of ad­just­ment to what is be­fore us and learn­ing from each new ex­pe­ri­ence. But I would say that re­cent events have demon­strat­ed how well the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is work­ing and while I ex­pect and de­mand more to be done I am proud of the per­for­mance.

Your po­lit­i­cal de­trac­tors-es­pe­cial­ly the PNM-are call­ing for the heads of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter John Sandy, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Dwayne Gibbs and your se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er Capt Gary Grif­fith in the wake of the re­leas­ing of the de­tainees, what say ye on this score?

Well, when last I read the score sheet on crime it sug­gest­ed thou­sands of those who broke the law and were on out­stand­ing war­rants-many of a se­ri­ous na­ture-were ap­pre­hend­ed. In fact, more crim­i­nals were ap­pre­hend­ed dur­ing that pe­ri­od than at any oth­er time dur­ing any oth­er crime fight­ing ini­tia­tive. More drugs and guns and am­mu­ni­tion than ever were re­moved from the streets, some 1.5 bil­lion dol­lars re­moved from the drug trade. Crime at all lev­els plum­met­ed to their low­est lev­el in years dur­ing the SoE. For the first time in over a decade, the crim­i­nals were on the run. Psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly, peo­ple felt safer.

Cit­i­zens saw a Gov­ern­ment that had the po­lit­i­cal will, the courage, the com­mit­ment to do what was nec­es­sary. We re­ceived sup­port from all sec­tors of the so­ci­ety in­clud­ing all ma­jor busi­ness group­ings. The pro­tec­tive ser­vices ral­lied to the cause and de­fend­ed the na­tion. It is un­for­tu­nate and mys­ti­fy­ing that the Op­po­si­tion, hav­ing pro­duced the crime we have to­day, can seek now to con­demn an ini­tia­tive that has demon­strat­ed such re­sults in mak­ing our na­tion safer. The PNM didn't just pre­side over the worst pe­ri­od of crime in this na­tion, they cre­at­ed the prob­lem through fund­ing so-called em­ploy­ment ini­tia­tives to so-called com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers who took the funds; hun­dreds of mil­lions of dol­lars worth of tax­pay­ers' mon­ey in ex­change for po­lit­i­cal pa­tron­age, pur­chased drugs and weapon­ry and cre­at­ed the prob­lem we have to­day. That is what we in­her­it­ed.

And the crit­i­cism that there was ab­solute­ly no need for a SoE to do what the se­cu­ri­ty forces did be­cause the work could have been achieved by nor­mal polic­ing ac­tiv­i­ties?

The PNM strat­e­gy was to in­vite these gang lead­ers to lux­u­ry ho­tels and ne­go­ti­ate. Ours is to find them wher­ev­er they are, in­clud­ing hid­ing in ho­tels, and bring them to jus­tice. And while ad­mit­ted­ly there were ar­eas where we could have done bet­ter, there is no ques­tion or doubt as to the huge lev­el of suc­cess that the SoE achieved and the ev­i­dence is there for all to see.

If the PNM says this could have been achieved with­out the SoE, my ques­tion is why didn't they do it? Why did for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Mar­tin Joseph and the for­mer prime min­is­ter turn down the re­quest by the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty for a state of emer­gency? What did the PNM do or achieve on crime re­duc­tion? With the crime rate at its high­est then, dur­ing the PNM's term in of­fice, they now have the temer­i­ty to call for the heads of men who have proud­ly as­sist­ed in cre­at­ing a dras­tic re­duc­tion in the crime they cre­at­ed? I think the pop­u­la­tion at large sees this for what it is, an op­po­si­tion par­ty with­out the moral au­thor­i­ty to de­nounce any crime fight­ing ini­tia­tive, more so one than has made the na­tion safer.

As chair­per­son of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil what lessons have the se­cu­ri­ty forces learnt over the pe­ri­od of the SoE?

Some of the lessons I can­not share with you be­cause they have al­ready be­come tech­niques and de­vices which will be used in fu­ture an­ti-crime ini­tia­tives, but in a broad sense the SoE put in­to prac­tice so many plans that the se­cu­ri­ty forces had pre­pared for over the years but now had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence in re­al life. There were lo­gis­ti­cal is­sues, le­gal pro­ce­dures, op­er­a­tional mat­ters, com­mu­ni­ca­tion strate­gies and a whole host of oth­er ben­e­fits of ex­pe­ri­ence aris­ing out of the SoE im­ple­men­ta­tion. But one of the most valu­able lessons for the joint ser­vices is the know­ing how ca­pa­ble they are at achiev­ing re­sults. They proved to them­selves and to the na­tion how well they can per­form against all odds.

Are you con­sid­er­ing ap­point­ing an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry in­to the whole af­fair based on such a call by the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion?

I should con­sid­er ap­point­ing an in­quiry in­to what hap­pened un­der the PNM to have tak­en crime from such a low lev­el when they as­sumed of­fice to its high­est ever, when they were re­moved by the peo­ple. I should con­sid­er an in­quiry in­to how the PNM could have as­sem­bled so called com­mu­ni­ty lead­ers in a lux­u­ry ho­tel in the full glare of the me­dia and pub­lic to ne­go­ti­ate. I should con­sid­er an in­quiry in­to the bil­lions of dol­lars wast­ed by the PNM on blimps and oth­er squan­der­ma­nia that filled pock­ets but brought no ben­e­fit to the peo­ple of this coun­try. But such an en­quiry on the PNM would at great ex­pense on­ly tell us what every­one al­ready knows. No, I am not fol­low­ing the ad­vice of the PNM on crime.

Prime Min­is­ter, your ad­min­is­tra­tion has been dogged by con­tro­ver­sy af­ter con­tro­ver­sy from the prover­bial day one. Aren't these is­sues over­shad­ow­ing?

(An­tic­i­pat­ing the ques­tion) The suc­cess­es of this Gov­ern­ment? No, I do not be­lieve so and the large ma­jor­i­ty of cit­i­zens are still very much in sup­port of the Gov­ern­ment. They feel safer...most of them.

How do you gauge that?

From our pub­lic ap­pear­ances, we look at the polls that are com­ing in, I don't see any­body boo­ing us or run­ning us. Wher­ev­er we go peo­ple wel­come us and in­deed they wish we could come to oth­er places. You know there is al­ways re­sis­tance to change that is a known sci­en­tif­ic fac­tor...in terms of change in any in­sti­tu­tion, or­gan­i­sa­tion in a so­ci­ety. The se­cret in cop­ing with that is how you deal with those chal­lenges. I wouldn't say we are dogged by con­tro­ver­sies I would say there are chal­lenges...there would al­ways be chal­lenges.

You have been in pub­lic life for a good many years, did you ever en­vis­age be­ing Prime Min­is­ter would have been this chal­leng­ing?

If I say yes then I am im­mod­est and if I say no then I am not re­al. So I will leave the an­swer to you (laughs). But in many ways I find in the ma­jor­i­ty of times I am able to han­dle those chal­lenges and of course cre­ate new chal­lenges. Be­cause my train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ences have been so di­ver­si­fied they just fit in­to place, and all along I nev­er knew I would have been sit­ting in this chair to­day. As a child I was bap­tised as a Bap­tist, why? My fa­ther thought it fit so to do and we grew up as prac­tic­ing Hin­dus and Bap­tist so my ex­pe­ri­ences-be they re­li­gious, po­lit­i­cal, as an at­tor­ney and so on have led me on this jour­ney.

You did say you are not com­ment­ing on the for­eign pol­i­cy of an­oth­er coun­try, but isn't this Hilton/Cu­ba is­sue one that de­serves to be fol­lowed up at the high­est lev­els in view of what some com­men­ta­tors are in­ter­pret­ing as a blow to our coun­try's sov­er­eign­ty?

Yes, I agree that the mat­ter isn't one which was de­sir­able but in my po­si­tion you learn how to treat with the del­i­ca­cy of these is­sues in the ap­pro­pri­ate way and to know that pub­lic com­men­tary is not al­ways in the best in­ter­est of the very pur­pose you set out to achieve. Al­ter­na­tive arrange­ments were made and the con­fer­ence pro­ceed­ed suc­cess­ful­ly, I might add. Trinidad and To­ba­go was proud to have host­ed the Cuban Pres­i­dent and to reaf­firm this na­tion's cor­dial re­la­tions and his­tor­i­cal recog­ni­tion of....

Madame Prime Min­is­ter, there is talk mak­ing the rounds that the as­sas­si­na­tion plot was set up to em­bar­rass the Gov­ern­ment by cer­tain peo­ple sym­pa­thet­ic to a cer­tain po­lit­i­cal par­ty. Have you heard such?

I have even heard that Row­ley re­ceived a se­cret doc­u­ment in his mail box but no one hap­pened to see the mail­man. I have heard all man­ner of things but one thing we must re­mem­ber and that is due to the machi­na­tions of a po­lit­i­cal sys­tem that gov­erned this coun­try for decades in which Trinidad and To­ba­go ben­e­fit­ted so lit­tle, a per­cent­age of our pop­u­la­tion has be­come un­der­stand­ably cyn­i­cal.

The PP al­so took some blows for host­ing in­ter­na­tion­al con­fer­ences in Port-of-Spain, some­thing for which the last PNM regime was se­vere­ly pound­ed when your par­ty was in op­po­si­tion?

First of all, these con­fer­ences have not cost bil­lions of dol­lars to tax­pay­ers like the two very large sum­mits held by the PNM which in­censed a lot of peo­ple. Fur­ther, many of the con­fer­ences be­ing held by this ad­min­is­traion have been part­ly spon­sored by the cor­po­rate sec­tor. So I do be­lieve that the pound­ing as you have put it was be­cause of the squan­der­ma­nia that was ev­i­dent on those oc­ca­sions un­der that dis­cred­it­ed PNM regime.

Prime Min­is­ter, you are keep­ing a very tight sched­ule in spite of your health chal­lenges. From where do you de­rive that strength and sta­mi­na?

From be­ing a woman (smile). I am en­er­gised by the tasks at hand each day of my life. I can­not ad­e­quate­ly de­scribe how ful­fill­ing and hum­bling it is to be mak­ing a dif­fer­ence to the lives of peo­ple through the de­ci­sions and in­puts made. From the mo­ment I wake up to the time I even­tu­al­ly fall asleep, at what­ev­er hour of the morn­ing that hap­pens to be, I am con­sumed by the need to ad­dress all kinds of mat­ters, each to me equal­ly im­por­tant in their own way. There is a huge re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to get it right and so many peo­ple de­pend­ing on the de­ci­sions I make. That in it­self is a great mo­ti­va­tor. My heart is in the right place and I give every ounce of en­er­gy to what I do, al­ways in the in­ter­est of the greater good of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the world to which we be­long. There is no health­i­er ap­proach to life than that, Clevon. With God in front I walk be­hind.

Have your doc­tors ad­vised you to take it easy be­cause of your re­cent health scare?

Every doc­tor, ei­ther out of con­cern or cau­tion, will tell you take it easy. And there wasn't any­thing scary about my health, Clevon. It was sim­ply a re­minder to me that I am hu­man at the end of the day, and that I must be more mind­ful of the need to eat prop­er­ly, get ad­e­quate rest and recre­ation, which for me is time with my fam­i­ly and grand­chil­dren, chil­dren in gen­er­al ac­tu­al­ly, mine or yours (smile). Whether I achieve that or not is a mat­ter of per­spec­tive and whom you ask. My hus­band will tell you I don't fol­low his or the doc­tor's ad­vice (laughs), but I be­lieve I am more aware now of my health than be­fore. And may I thank you for the con­cern. Please take care of your­self as well.

Fi­nal­ly Prime min­is­ter, can the coun­try ex­pect a smoother run­ning of your Gov­ern­ment in the new year?

(A somber ex­pres­sion) We al­ways live in hope and I look for­ward to a bet­ter new year; I cer­tain­ly do in terms of eco­nom­ics, in terms of the gov­er­nance. I look for­ward to a bet­ter 2012 and to all our cit­i­zens I wish to say a hap­py new year, but be­fore we get there, a hap­py and pleas­ant Christ­mas. (She leaves to re­turn to the sit­ting of the leg­is­la­ture.)