Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der says he is await­ing word from the Prime Min­is­ter and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al to de­ter­mine when Gov­ern­ment’s con­tro­ver­sial Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) leg­is­la­tion will re­turn to Par­lia­ment, as he in­sists the pro­posed law is about trans­form­ing com­mu­ni­ties and not sim­ply send­ing po­lice of­fi­cers in­to crime hotspots.

Alexan­der an­nounced on Sat­ur­day, a day af­ter telling Par­lia­ment that Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bring back the leg­is­la­tion, which is de­signed to pro­vide “spe­cial mea­sures to up­hold the rule of law, pub­lic or­der, cit­i­zens’ se­cu­ri­ty and pub­lic safe­ty” with­in ge­o­graph­i­cal­ly de­fined ar­eas.

But while Gov­ern­ment pre­pares for an­oth­er at­tempt to se­cure par­lia­men­tary ap­proval, Alexan­der made it clear that he does not con­trol the tim­ing of the bill’s re­turn.

“When the ZOSO is ready, they will in­di­cate to us and we’ll bring it be­fore the Ho­n­ourable House,” he said, re­fer­ring to Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie.

The leg­is­la­tion’s re­turn fol­lows the col­lapse of its first it­er­a­tion in Jan­u­ary, when Gov­ern­ment failed to se­cure the re­quired three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty in the Sen­ate.

Eight of the nine In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors and all six Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors vot­ed against the Bill.

The de­feat trig­gered a po­lit­i­cal firestorm, with Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­demn­ing the sen­a­tors and al­leg­ing that two In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors had ap­proached a se­nior Gov­ern­ment mem­ber seek­ing per­son­al favours in ex­change for their votes.

The Prime Min­is­ter claimed the re­quests were re­ject­ed but de­clined to name the two sen­a­tors in­volved.

Now, as Gov­ern­ment pre­pares to make an­oth­er at­tempt, Alexan­der is seek­ing to dis­pel what he de­scribed as a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of the leg­is­la­tion.

“I think what peo­ple mis­un­der­stood the first time, they thought ZOSO was just law en­force­ment com­ing in and de­tain­ing per­sons and all that. No,” he said.

“ZOSO is re­al­ly a spe­cial­ly de­signed holis­tic in­ter­ven­tion that changes en­vi­ron­ment and the hu­man de­vel­op­ment in a com­mu­ni­ty, re­al­ly. That is what it is.”

Alexan­der said the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would al­low Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress crime while si­mul­ta­ne­ous­ly tack­ling the so­cial and eco­nom­ic prob­lems that can leave com­mu­ni­ties vul­ner­a­ble to vi­o­lence.

Pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice So­cial and Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion (TTPSS­WA), ASP Ish­mael Pitt, said the as­so­ci­a­tion was open to new crime-fight­ing strate­gies, pro­vid­ed they did not com­pro­mise of­fi­cers’ wel­fare or de­mo­c­ra­t­ic prin­ci­ples.

“Crime is very, very dy­nam­ic, which means you may need dif­fer­ent strate­gies to ad­dress dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions,” Pitt said.

Pitt said ZOSO could prove ef­fec­tive if prop­er­ly man­aged.

“Gen­er­al­ly speak­ing, it’s not a case of us say­ing no; it is not some­thing that is not go­ing to work. We be­lieve there are a lot of mea­sures with­in that have al­ready been placed that could bring some im­pact in or­der to ad­dress what we are treat­ing with.”

Crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Randy Seep­er­sad said ZOSO had been used ef­fec­tive­ly in Ja­maica, but warned that Gov­ern­ment must ad­dress con­cerns raised dur­ing the first par­lia­men­tary de­bate.

Seep­er­sad stressed that while polic­ing was nec­es­sary in high-crime com­mu­ni­ties, it could not be the on­ly com­po­nent of the in­ter­ven­tion.

“We can’t at­tempt to sug­ar-coat the crime sit­u­a­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go be­cause in­no­cent lives are quite of­ten lost as a re­sult of the crime sit­u­a­tion.”

He ar­gued that the SoE had saved lives, while ac­knowl­edg­ing that its im­ple­men­ta­tion and the pre­vi­ous ZOSO Bill had at­tract­ed valid crit­i­cism.

Seep­er­sad said Gov­ern­ment could ad­dress those con­cerns through a re­con­fig­ured ap­proach with prop­er checks and bal­ances.

“You can en­sure that checks and bal­ances are in place and there are no abus­es of hu­man rights un­der the ap­proach,” he said.

He added that res­i­dents were more like­ly to em­brace the in­ter­ven­tion when they saw tan­gi­ble ben­e­fits.

Mean­while, the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers (CR­BC) al­so called for a com­pre­hen­sive ap­proach, with Chief Strat­e­gy Of­fi­cer Ang­ie Jairam in­sist­ing that the ob­jec­tive must go be­yond con­trol­ling com­mu­ni­ties.

“Don’t just se­cure our com­mu­ni­ties, trans­form them,” the or­gan­i­sa­tion de­clared.

The CR­BC said se­cu­ri­ty and in­tel­li­gence were es­sen­tial, but the ini­tia­tive must al­so ad­dress the con­di­tions that al­low crime to flour­ish.

It warned that Gov­ern­ment must not sim­ply bring back the same Bill and hope for a dif­fer­ent out­come.

“A pol­i­cy is on­ly as ef­fec­tive as its im­ple­men­ta­tion,” the CR­BC said, call­ing for clear re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, ad­e­quate re­sources, mea­sur­able ob­jec­tives, mon­i­tor­ing and ac­count­abil­i­ty.