Dr Bhoe Tewarie

This time, the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er was front and cen­tre for the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency in the dead of night. And be­fore dawn broke, the com­mis­sion­er, through col­lab­o­ra­tion with the prison hi­er­ar­chy and the army gen­er­als, and with the coast guard’s sup­port, had trans­ferred pris­on­ers as­sessed as lead­ers of crim­i­nal en­ter­pris­es to mil­i­tary su­per­vi­sion at Teteron and Staubles Bay in Ch­aguara­mas.

We heard on­ly briefly from the Prime Min­is­ter and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al. Prison of­fi­cers were nei­ther vis­i­ble nor loud. Army gen­er­als were not in the pub­lic eye. The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty was not up front ei­ther. Nor was the Min­is­ter of De­fence. But clear­ly, the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Min­istry of De­fence and the Of­fice of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al col­lab­o­rat­ed.

When the ex­ten­sion of the SoE comes up for de­bate in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day, it is my hope that we will get more in­for­ma­tion and clar­i­ty from Gov­ern­ment and re­spon­si­ble, if crit­i­cal, sup­port from the Op­po­si­tion, rather than heat, con­fu­sion and par­ti­san ac­ri­mo­ny from par­lia­men­tary speak­ers.

CoP Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro, new and fresh, and faced with sense­less mur­ders and an un­ex­pect­ed kid­nap­ping threat­en­ing to trig­ger an es­ca­la­tion of fear, and aware of threats to agents of the State and the jus­tice sys­tem, through gath­ered in­tel­li­gence, gave the nec­es­sary ad­vice to the po­lit­i­cal di­rec­torate. The Prime Min­is­ter act­ed. The Pres­i­dent made the de­c­la­ra­tion and from there, the com­mis­sion­er took charge. With no cur­few, no re­stric­tions on the pop­u­la­tion, the com­mis­sion­er just ad­vised that the coun­try was un­der a SoE be­cause of threats to of­fi­cials in the jus­tice sys­tem.

The killings have not stopped but kid­nap vic­tim Jankie Satie Karim has been res­cued; the threat from the prison sys­tem is be­ing man­aged; the CoP is lead­ing, the SoE is in force, and the po­lice are armed with the emer­gency pow­ers to deal with what­ev­er may be iden­ti­fied dur­ing this pe­ri­od.

Watch­ing the com­mis­sion­er on the Tues­day evening news, one saw a no-non­sense CoP do­ing his job and lead­ing from the front. The kid­nap­pers had been pur­sued and dealt with, two killed, two tak­en to prison, and the kid­nap vic­tim had been res­cued.

The com­mis­sion­er looked good and seemed to know what he was about. He did not gallery and does not seem giv­en to ex­cess. A mea­sure of re­straint in this bac­cha­nal cul­ture, es­pe­cial­ly in of­fices that re­quire trust and con­fi­dence, is very de­sir­able. And that kind of mut­ed dis­play tends to give com­fort.

At the same time, the job re­quires bold­ness, courage, re­sources and where­with­al. And a whole lot of co­op­er­a­tion and syn­er­gy, in­side and out­side the po­lice ser­vice, if po­lice work is to be suc­cess­ful. So, stream­lin­ing po­lice work to con­tain crim­i­nal ac­tion has to be the first or­der of busi­ness for the com­mis­sion­er.

This com­mis­sion­er was well known to the pub­lic be­fore he was ap­point­ed. And dur­ing the de­bate in Par­lia­ment to agree on his ap­point­ment, he was not politi­cised. So, he got a good start with unan­i­mous ap­proval. And if he proves to be a no-non­sense pro­fes­sion­al who re­stores T&T to law, or­der and jus­tice, he would have done a great ser­vice to our coun­try. We there­fore wish Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro well and wish him suc­cess.

But what will be re­gard­ed as suc­cess af­ter decades of es­ca­la­tion of crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, and the en­trench­ment of gang­ster­ism as an as­pect of na­tion­al life, which the com­mis­sion­er says now has a well-co­or­di­nat­ed ca­pac­i­ty in the na­tion’s prison sys­tem?

Go­ing on­ly on what the com­mis­sion­er has said, and what the pub­lic now knows, does the en­tire prison sys­tem not need a clean­ing out, a purge?

Clear­ing out the gang lead­ers, or­gan­is­ers and shot callers from the prison sys­tem and iso­lat­ing them from oth­er pris­on­ers and cor­rupt or com­pli­ant prison of­fi­cers is step one. But what are the next steps? How is the prison sys­tem to be re­stored to ac­cept­able stan­dards of con­tain­ment and se­cu­ri­ty?

To be­gin with, cor­rupt and com­plic­it prison of­fi­cers have to be weed­ed out. Vul­ner­a­ble prison of­fi­cers who can be threat­ened or black­mailed can’t be kept on board. How does one solve these dif­fi­cult prob­lems? And that, in any case, is not un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the CoP.

Pris­ons are un­der the purview of the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons. The Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty has ju­ris­dic­tion over the Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons and the prison sys­tem; just as he has over the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. So, it is nec­es­sary to have a Com­mis­sion­er of Pris­ons for­mal­ly ap­point­ed and to be giv­en the task of clean­ing out the prison sys­tem.

Be­yond that, there is so much else to be done.