Mark Bas­sant

Lead Ed­i­tor, In­ves­tiga­tive Desk

While the T&T Coast Guard (TTCG) face mount­ing pub­lic pres­sure and in­tense in­ter­na­tion­al me­dia scruti­ny in the shoot­ing death of one-year-old Ya Elvis San­toyo last Sat­ur­day, ne­far­i­ous crim­i­nal el­e­ments have vowed to re­tal­i­ate for the death of the one-year-old ba­by forc­ing the TTCG to el­e­vate its threat lev­el.

Se­nior in­tel­li­gence coast guard sources and oth­er in­tel­li­gence sources con­firmed that a top-lev­el se­cu­ri­ty meet­ing was held on Tues­day fol­low­ing in­for­ma­tion re­ceived about the threat con­nect­ed to Sun­day’s in­ci­dent.

In light of the threat, an email ti­tled “El­e­vat­ed Threat Lev­el,” was sent out to sev­er­al de­part­ments of the coast guard which Guardian Me­dia ex­clu­sive­ly ob­tained that stat­ed, “Be ad­vised that the threat levied against the Coast Guard has been el­e­vat­ed. As such, ALL Of­fi­cers and Rat­ings are to ex­er­cise ex­treme care and at­ten­tion dur­ing the ex­e­cu­tion of their du­ties. Fur­ther, you are to be aware of your per­son­al sur­round­ings and you are strong­ly ad­vised against the wear­ing of uni­form when not on ac­tu­al du­ty and in pub­lic.”

“Un­der­world el­e­ments from Venezuela and oth­ers have sent threats af­ter the shoot­ing,” one in­tel­li­gence source re­vealed.

Guardian Me­dia al­so un­der­stands that a spe­cif­ic threat was sent di­rect­ly to a se­nior coast guard of­fi­cer by some­one well con­nect­ed in Venezuela.

Three sep­a­rate in­tel­li­gence sources con­firmed that this spe­cif­ic threat was sent via so­cial me­dia. The per­son told the of­fi­cer they were aware of who he was and could lo­cate him and al­so called him a “ba­by killer.”

Guardian Me­dia sent text mes­sages and left a voice­mail for Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds on whether he had been aware of the el­e­vat­ed coast guard threats and if he had any com­ment. How­ev­er, he did not re­spond up to press time.

The ba­by’s moth­er Darie Elvis Eliag­nis Sara­bia was al­so shot dur­ing the in­ci­dent when a TTCG in­ter­cep­tor at­tempt­ed to stop a pirogue just be­fore mid­night on Sat­ur­day last in the wa­ters of the Colum­bus Chan­nel near Moru­ga.

The Coast Guard, in a state­ment on Sun­day evening last, said their per­son­nel had opened fire in “self-de­fence,” af­ter what they de­scribed as “ag­gres­sive ma­noeu­vres” by the mi­grant craft that had en­tered in­to this coun­try’s wa­ters.

“The ram­ming ef­fort by the sus­pect ves­sel which was larg­er than the ship’s boat caused the crew to fear for their lives and in self-de­fence, they fired at the en­gines of the sus­pect ves­sel in an at­tempt to bring it to a stop,” the state­ment had ex­plained.

The of­fi­cers said on­ly when they board­ed the pirogue did they find the wound­ed moth­er and the dead in­fant in her arms. Sev­er­al oth­ers were de­tained and tak­en in­to cus­tody.

The in­ci­dent has since trig­gered a furore in Venezuela as dozens of Venezue­lans bear­ing plac­ards stood out­side the Em­bassy of Trinidad and To­ba­go on Tues­day de­mand­ing jus­tice for the ba­by’s death.

A few days ago Venezuela’s Pres­i­dent Nicholas Maduro asked the T&T Gov­ern­ment to en­sure there is an “ex­haus­tive in­ves­ti­ga­tion” in­to the ba­by’s death, while Venezuela’s op­po­si­tion leader Juan Guai­do called the killing “un­jus­ti­fied” on his Twit­ter ac­count. Sev­er­al oth­er Venezue­lan and Trinida­di­an ad­vo­ca­cy groups have al­so chimed in on en­sur­ing there is a prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley while de­scrib­ing the in­ci­dent yes­ter­day as an ac­ci­dent on his Face­book page as he re­spond­ed to claims by Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, said coast guard mem­bers were car­ry­ing out “rea­son­able and pro­fes­sion­al or­ders un­der in­ter­na­tion­al pro­to­cols and law.”

Hinds has al­so giv­en the as­sur­ance in re­sponse to a ques­tion in the Sen­ate that the TTCG and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) were con­duct­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the ba­by’s death.

But there still re­mains some lin­ger­ing ques­tions about the Rules of En­gage­ment that Guardian Me­dia had been try­ing to ob­tain re­spons­es from Lieu­tenant Ker­ron Valere the pub­lic af­fairs of­fi­cer of the TTCG.

On Sun­day, ques­tions had been sent to Valere about this spe­cif­ic top­ic.

On Mon­day, he was again con­tact­ed by this jour­nal­ist about whether his se­niors had re­spond­ed to the ques­tions. Valere frankly stat­ed, “We have no fur­ther com­ment.”

But Guardian Me­dia was able to ob­tain ex­clu­sive­ly the in­ter­nal guide­lines for the TTCG on pro­to­cols for open­ing fire, when you may fire with­out warn­ing and the gen­er­al prin­ci­ples for the Rules of En­gage­ment.

Un­der the Rules of En­gage­ment un­der the sub­head­ing Use of Force, it ex­plic­it­ly states that “the use of force shall be used as a last re­sort and shall be min­i­mum ef­fec­tive force nec­es­sary to achieve the mis­sion.”

The next sub­head­ing speaks to self de­fence in­di­cat­ing “ship cap­tains and ser­vice per­son­nel re­tain the right and oblig­a­tion to ex­er­cise self-de­fence in re­sponse to the hos­tile act, demon­strat­ed hos­tile act or demon­strat­ed hos­tile in­tent.”

Un­der the Rules of En­gage­ment, Threat as­sess­ment guide­lines are al­so man­dat­ed that in­di­cates, “this will be guid­ed by the ex­ist­ing en­vi­ron­men­tal fac­tors (day­light or dark­ness, lo­ca­tion, ac­cess to cov­er, prox­im­i­ty to civil­ians and or in­no­cent by­standers, num­ber of sub­jects and sub­ject’s be­hav­iour.”

It al­so im­plored coast guard of­fices to use non-lethal force when “ser­vice per­son­nel shall as face prac­ti­ca­ble use non-lethal force where the threat is not hos­tile and or im­mi­nent.”

How­ev­er, the last head­ing of the Rules of En­gage­ment out­lines when lethal force can be used stat­ing, “ser­vice per­son­nel are per­mit­ted to use lethal force for the pur­pose of achiev­ing the mis­sion, such lethal force shall be in ac­cor­dance with the pre­ced­ing claus­es and shall be last re­sort.”

The claus­es ref­er­enced are Di­rec­tions for Open­ing Fire and Gen­er­al Guide­lines for all coast guard per­son­nel.

Clause two in­di­cates: “Nev­er use more force than the min­i­mum nec­es­sary to en­able you to car­ry your du­ties.”

Clause three says “Al­ways try to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion by oth­er means than open­ing fire. If you have to fire: (i) Fire on­ly aimed shots to stop en­gines; (ii) Do not fire more rounds than are ab­solute­ly nec­es­sary to achieve your aim.”

Claus­es six in­di­cates “When­ev­er pos­si­ble a warn­ing should be giv­en be­fore you open fire, while clause sev­en says, “A warn­ing should be as loud as pos­si­ble, prefer­ably by loud hail­er. It must: (i) Give clear or­ders to stop at­tack­ing or to halt, as ap­pro­pri­ate. (ii) Re­lease flares to get the at­ten­tion of the ves­sel(s). (iii) State that fire will be opened if the or­ders are not obeyed.”

Crit­i­cal is Clause 13 with the head­ing, “You may fire with­out warn­ing (i) When hos­tile fir­ing is tak­ing place in your area and a warn­ing is im­prac­ti­ca­ble, (ii) Against a per­son car­ry­ing what you pos­i­tive­ly iden­ti­fy as a firearm if he is clear­ly about to use it for of­fen­sive pur­pose, (iii) Against a ship or boat that is about to il­le­gal­ly en­dan­ger a coast guard ves­sel.”

In this in­stance the first two parts of clause 13 did not ap­ply to this sit­u­a­tion, how­ev­er, the third ac­cord­ing to the coast guard did ap­ply ac­cord­ing to their re­lease.