DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

An­a­lysts are ques­tion­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that spe­cial op­er­a­tions un­der the new law will be lim­it­ed to ar­eas con­trolled by the Gov­ern­ment, with crim­i­nol­o­gist Dau­rius Figueira warn­ing the ap­proach could fu­el po­lit­i­cal back­lash and in­ten­si­fy crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty else­where.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said on Mon­day that spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be au­tho­rised in the 26 Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress-held con­stituen­cies, 70 UNC-held lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­toral dis­tricts and two To­ba­go con­stituen­cies, fol­low­ing con­sul­ta­tion with To­ba­go Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

Figueira de­scribed the move as a “bold gam­ble,” ar­gu­ing that ex­clud­ing Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled ar­eas could dis­place crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty in­to those com­mu­ni­ties and even­tu­al­ly cre­ate pres­sure for the Gov­ern­ment to in­ter­vene.

“What it is, in fact, is a bold gam­ble that in the ab­sence of the spe­cial op­er­a­tions in PNM-con­trolled ar­eas, you will push crim­i­nal­i­ty out of your ar­eas, forc­ing them to in­crease their crim­i­nal­i­ty in PNM-con­trolled ar­eas,” Figueira said.

He said the re­sult­ing pres­sure could pro­duce po­lit­i­cal back­lash against the PNM; how­ev­er, he ac­knowl­edged that this strat­e­gy could al­so fail.

“So what this is now is a gam­bit to fin­ish off the PNM as an elec­toral force, to have the peo­ple beg for it, and then you move in and set up your prime ob­jec­tive,” Figueira said.

“But that can very well back­fire in your face.”

The crim­i­nol­o­gist fur­ther ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of re­ly­ing on what he called “moral pan­ics” and con­tin­u­ing to frame crim­i­nal­i­ty through an eth­nic lens.

“What is hap­pen­ing is peo­ple are speak­ing to a myth­ic re­al­i­ty of crim­i­nal­i­ty, a so-called re­al­i­ty of crim­i­nal­i­ty that does not ex­ist on the ground, and they are us­ing myth to pre­scribe re­pres­sion,” he said.

“What is dri­ving these myths is a racist apartheid agen­da, and that is the grave threat to Trinidad and To­ba­go, not crim­i­nal­i­ty,” he added.

Figueira al­so ques­tioned what would hap­pen if crime con­tin­ued to de­cline in PNM-con­trolled ar­eas with­out spe­cial op­er­a­tions, while in­creas­ing in ar­eas where the op­er­a­tions were be­ing con­duct­ed.

He said the coun­try could see dif­fer­ent crime pat­terns emerge in dif­fer­ent parts of Trinidad, par­tic­u­lar­ly along the East-West Cor­ri­dor and south of the Ca­roni Riv­er.

More­over, Figueira said he be­lieved a more sig­nif­i­cant na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threat was emerg­ing from the move­ment of firearms and drug-traf­fick­ing net­works.

He cit­ed two re­cent ma­jor drug busts which he de­scribed as an at­tempt to re­con­nect Trinidad and To­ba­go to a Eu­ro­pean traf­fick­ing route.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James, mean­while, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty that ex­tends across the coun­try, re­gard­less of po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

“The Prime Min­is­ter, re­gard­less of her po­si­tion on the wis­dom of the PNM po­si­tion, should still push ahead be­cause she’s the Prime Min­is­ter and she’s per­suad­ed that what she’s go­ing ahead with or what she’s sug­gest­ing would not be in the best in­ter­est of the coun­try,” James said.

“And she must think again and veer away from that di­rec­tion be­cause that’s a very dan­ger­ous di­rec­tion.”

James al­so said the PNM has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to present an al­ter­na­tive if it re­jects the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach.

He ar­gued that op­pos­ing the leg­is­la­tion alone is in­suf­fi­cient and that the Op­po­si­tion should of­fer what he de­scribed as a su­pe­ri­or al­ter­na­tive.