DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Two days be­fore the na­tion em­braced the start of a new year, the Gov­ern­ment an­nounced the im­po­si­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE), draw­ing lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion.

This de­ci­sion came as a shock to many cit­i­zens, some of whom had long ad­vo­cat­ed for such a mea­sure to com­bat the es­ca­lat­ing crime rate—a call that went unan­swered dur­ing the al­most 10 years of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Ad­dress­ing re­porters at a me­dia con­fer­ence on De­cem­ber 30, act­ing At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art Young said the SoE de­ci­sion was made af­ter in­tel­li­gence gath­ered by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) sug­gest­ed that reprisal vi­o­lence in­volv­ing the use of high-pow­ered as­sault weapons by gangs could be im­mi­nent. This fol­lowed the mur­der of 34-year-old Trevor Williams out­side the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion on De­cem­ber 28, and the sub­se­quent mass killing of five peo­ple in Priz­gar Lands, Laven­tille, on De­cem­ber 29th.

Williams had been part of a group ac­com­pa­ny­ing Calvin Lee, al­so known as “Tyson” or “Dan 6,” to the Besson Street Po­lice Sta­tion. Lee, who po­lice de­scribed as a “re­put­ed gang leader,” vis­its the po­lice sta­tion reg­u­lar­ly as part of his bail con­di­tions, ac­com­pa­nied by an en­tourage that serves as look­outs. He sur­vived the at­tack.

Young sought to jus­ti­fy the SoE, which Gov­ern­ment had pre­vi­ous­ly re­ject­ed, say­ing: “Cer­tain crim­i­nal gangs, I will leave out the places where at this stage, but I can say through­out Trinidad and pos­si­bly To­ba­go are like­ly to im­me­di­ate­ly in­crease their brazen acts of vi­o­lence in reprisal shoot­ings on a scale so ex­ten­sive that it threat­ens per­sons and will en­dan­ger pub­lic safe­ty.”

Young stressed that the 61 mur­ders record­ed at the time and T&T’s dead­liest year on record with 623 killings — in­clud­ing To­ba­go’s alarm­ing rise to 26 killings from 14 in 2023 — were not the cat­a­lyst for the SoE.

“There is not go­ing to be any cur­few. That de­ci­sion is be­cause the tar­get­ing of this na­tion­al pub­lic State of Emer­gency is on those who en­gage in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty with crim­i­nal in­tent of en­dan­ger­ing the pub­lic safe­ty through the use of these il­le­gal firearms, both high-ve­loc­i­ty as well as il­le­gal hand­guns and the oth­er likes,” he said.

Un­like pre­vi­ous SoEs, such as those in 1990 and 2011, the new mea­sures did not im­pose cur­fews or re­stric­tions on pub­lic meet­ings or march­es. How­ev­er, Young con­firmed that cer­tain con­sti­tu­tion­al rights had been sus­pend­ed.

“The po­lice ser­vice will be giv­en pow­ers to search premis­es with­out war­rants, to search per­sons with­out war­rants who they have sus­pi­cions of car­ry­ing out crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties, a lot of it as­so­ci­at­ed with il­le­gal firearms and al­so to de­tain per­sons for pe­ri­ods of time. We are go­ing to have a 48-hour hold­ing pe­ri­od where per­sons can be held un­der these reg­u­la­tions there­after a mag­is­trate or se­nior po­lice of­fi­cer can make an or­der of de­ten­tion for an­oth­er sev­en days while ev­i­dence is be­ing gath­ered,” he said.

In a bad sign for 2025 though, at­tor­ney Ran­dall Hec­tor was gunned down along Stan­more Av­enue, Port-of-Spain, on the first day of the SoE, a mere four hours be­fore New Year’s Day.

The coun­try’s homi­cide rate reached a grim 600 mile­stone on De­cem­ber 23rd, when 36-year-old ju­di­cia­ry work­er Sta­cy Gopauls­ingh was hacked to death dur­ing a home in­va­sion.

This, along with oth­er mass killings, do­mes­tic-re­lat­ed homi­cides, and fa­tal home in­va­sions, con­tributed to the sta­tis­tics. One such home in­va­sion oc­curred on De­cem­ber 15th, when 68-year-old Am­i­na Mo­hammed be­came the vic­tim of in­trud­ers who stabbed her to death us­ing her kitchen knife.

Ac­ci­den­tal homi­cides al­so es­ca­lat­ed the death toll last year. Six­teen-year-old Je­re­mi­ah Out­ram was shot in the head by his 15-year-old cousin in San­gre Grande on De­cem­ber 21st. He died in the home he was vis­it­ing for the hol­i­days, leav­ing his fam­i­ly mem­bers strug­gling to cope. His grand­moth­er, Pa­tri­cia Pierre, be­lieves the at­trac­tion to so­cial me­dia fame played a part in his demise.

“Stop this so­cial me­dia, stop this Tik­Tok be­cause it is that what have my lit­tle grand­son dead to­day,” she warned.

Con­tin­ues on page 9

Trau­mat­ic De­cem­ber

De­cem­ber brought unimag­in­able tragedy, as the bor­ough of Ari­ma was stunned by the pass­ing of D’Abadie/O’Meara MP and Min­is­ter of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, along with her 25-year-old daugh­ter Xi­anne and six-year-old son Je­si­ah.

The trio per­ished in a fire that broke out at their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home at 5.30 am on De­cem­ber 16th. Eye­wit­ness­es re­called hear­ing Xi­anne’s des­per­ate cries.

De­spite claims from the Fire Ser­vice that they ar­rived with­in 11 min­utes, CCTV footage and eye­wit­ness­es sug­gest­ed a much longer re­sponse time. How­ev­er, the elec­tric­i­ty was dis­rupt­ed once the fire spread to a light pole, caus­ing se­cu­ri­ty cam­eras to miss the time they ar­rived.

“There was no ur­gency in­volved. They just took the in­for­ma­tion, and the fe­male cen­tu­ry said, she say, ‘well, we in­formed Tu­na­puna, Tu­na­puna re­spond­ing.’ If there was a bet­ter re­sponse from the fire ser­vice, even if it was a foot re­sponse, we could have saved some lives,” said one res­i­dent, who wished to re­main uniden­ti­fied, about the re­sponse of fire­fight­ers from the near­by Ari­ma Fire Sta­tion, which is less than a block away from the prop­er­ty.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian Gov­ern­ment col­leagues flocked to the scene. Many of them were over­whelmed with grief and were al­lowed to view the bod­ies in­side the burnt-out house.

A pub­lic spat soon de­vel­oped be­tween the Fire Ser­vice and Min­istry of Pub­lic Util­i­ties over sup­posed wa­ter chal­lenges, lead­ing to the for­ma­tion of a com­mit­tee, head­ed by for­mer fire chief Roo­sevelt Bruce, to in­ves­ti­gate the Fire Ser­vice’s re­sponse to the blaze.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s hus­band, Daniel Ju­lian, was hos­pi­talised for four days fol­low­ing the tragedy. Their two oth­er chil­dren, 22-year-old Anya and 17-year-old Isa­iah, along with her 48-year-old sis­ter Siane Mor­ris and her daugh­ter’s boyfriend, 23-year-old Ed­ward Allen, were treat­ed for smoke in­hala­tion and lat­er dis­charged.

A state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al will be held for Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren to­mor­row, fit­ting for a woman de­scribed by the Prime Min­is­ter as “the best rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Gov­ern­ment of T&T.”

Mean­while, dis­as­ter struck South Trinidad when Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed’s Rig 110, lo­cat­ed in the Her­itage Off­shore East Field in the Gulf of Paria, par­tial­ly col­lapsed at 3 am on De­cem­ber 22nd. Of the 75 em­ploy­ees present, 47-year-old Pe­te Phillip was the on­ly one to go miss­ing. His body has not been re­cov­ered.

His preg­nant wife, 34-year-old Can­da­cy Phillip, is dev­as­tat­ed. The cou­ple, mar­ried for 16 years, has four chil­dren be­tween the ages of 3 and 13, and they had been ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pat­ing his re­turn home on Christ­mas Day.

‘Sil­ly sea­son’ com­mences

With gen­er­al elec­tions con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly due by Au­gust, 2025, De­cem­ber was a month of po­lit­i­cal strate­gis­ing for both the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC).

On De­cem­ber 2, Port-of-Spain City Cor­po­ra­tion al­der­man Ka­reem Mar­celle was named the PNM’s can­di­date for Laven­tille West, just four days af­ter in­cum­bent MP Fitzger­ald Hinds an­nounced his ex­it from rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al pol­i­tics.

Mar­celle tri­umphed over Dr Kadelle Jesse­my, and the an­nounce­ment sparked wild cel­e­bra­tions out­side Bal­isi­er House and in the streets, as hun­dreds of sup­port­ers, many wav­ing plac­ards, cheered. In his first ad­dress as the par­ty’s can­di­date, Mar­celle de­clared that his top pri­or­i­ty would be bring­ing peace and love to the crime-plagued Laven­tille com­mu­ni­ty.

Things did not go so well for La Brea MP Stephen Mc Clashie, who was re­ject­ed by the PNM’s screen­ing com­mit­tee. His con­stituents ac­cused him of be­ing ab­sent and high­light­ed un­em­ploy­ment and pover­ty as their main con­cerns.

Laven­tille East/Mor­vant MP Adri­an Leonce dropped out of the elec­toral race af­ter fail­ing to ap­pear for screen­ing due to fam­i­ly is­sues.

Mean­while, an ex­clu­sive Sun­day Guardian re­port re­vealed For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne could re­place Dr Row­ley as Diego Mar­tin West MP, but Browne said he was not ap­proached by the con­stituen­cy ex­ec­u­tive on this mat­ter, al­though the re­port did not in­di­cate he was ap­proached by the ex­ec­u­tive, while Dr Row­ley has re­mained mum on the is­sue.

On De­cem­ber 13, UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­gan ef­forts to form al­liances with three po­lit­i­cal par­ties and five trade unions in a bid to un­seat the PNM when­ev­er the gen­er­al elec­tion is called. How­ev­er, the al­liance was im­me­di­ate­ly re­ject­ed by To­ba­go’s po­lit­i­cal par­ties. While Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ject­ed the po­lit­i­cal par­ties led by Gary Grif­fith (Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance) and Mick­ela Pan­day (Pa­tri­ot­ic Front), the UNC’s pro­posed arrange­ment with two of its al­lies— the Con­gress of the Peo­ple and HOPE—col­lapsed short­ly af­ter­wards, when both par­ties chose to align with Grif­fith’s NTA.

The COP then faced in­ter­nal tur­moil fol­low­ing Kirt Sin­nette’s res­ig­na­tion as in­ter­im leader and the ap­point­ment of for­mer par­ty leader Prakash Ra­mad­har as in­ter­im leader. The par­ty’s ex­ec­u­tive, af­ter ini­tial­ly send­ing out a me­dia re­lease in­di­cat­ing the re­turn of Ra­mad­har, sub­se­quent­ly re­vealed Ra­mad­har’s ap­point­ment had not been rat­i­fied. Sin­nette in­sist­ed he did not need such ap­proval when he made the de­ci­sion to ap­point Ra­mad­har a deputy leader be­fore re­sign­ing and ap­point­ing him in­ter­im leader, but the par­ty has since in­di­cat­ed it is iron­ing out is­sues.

To­ba­go air­port scan­dal, leg­isla­tive up­sets

To­ba­go’s tran­quil­i­ty was shak­en by al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion sur­round­ing the con­struc­tion of the ANR Robin­son In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port.

Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of spend­ing $461 mil­lion in cost over­runs to ex­pe­dite the project, but Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert de­nied this.

“As of to­day, the orig­i­nal con­struc­tion con­tract sum has been ex­ceed­ed by US$2.5 mil­lion or 2%,” he told re­porters at a post-Cab­i­net me­dia con­fer­ence on De­cem­ber 6.

The fol­low­ing day, how­ev­er, he was forced to re­tract his state­ment af­ter a Cab­i­net note dat­ed No­vem­ber 28 was leaked, show­ing ad­di­tion­al funds re­quest­ed for the project, in­clud­ing an ad­vanced pay­ment of US$15 mil­lion to the Chi­na Rail­way Con­struc­tion Caribbean Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed while a claim was be­ing set­tled. He lat­er clar­i­fied that cost over­runs ac­tu­al­ly amount­ed to US$17.5 mil­lion. When asked to ex­plain the er­ror, Im­bert said he had on­ly ad­dressed what he knew at the time. When re­porters point­ed out that he would have been in pos­ses­sion of the Cab­i­net note, he sug­gest­ed he did not ex­pect it to re­main a se­cret.

As cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions per­sist­ed, it was re­vealed on De­cem­ber 15 that Al­lan Warn­er, the Prime Min­is­ter’s friend, was a sub-con­trac­tor on the project, which the Op­po­si­tion de­scribed as con­cern­ing.

Mean­while, on De­cem­ber 9, the Low­er House passed one bill aimed at grant­i­ng the is­land greater au­ton­o­my, but failed to pass a sec­ond bill with a sim­i­lar ob­jec­tive.

The To­ba­go Is­land Gov­ern­ment Bill, 2021, was passed with 20 votes in favour and 10 against. How­ev­er, the Con­sti­tu­tion (Amend­ment) (To­ba­go Self-gov­ern­ment) Bill, 2020, which re­quired a spe­cial ma­jor­i­ty of 31 votes, on­ly gar­nered the sup­port of 21 MPs, with 16 vot­ing against. This re­sult an­gered Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine, who missed out on be­com­ing To­ba­go’s first pre­mier through the leg­is­la­tion. He took to so­cial me­dia, call­ing Prime Min­is­ter Row­ley a “house slave.”

In the cap­i­tal, wide­spread anger was avoid­ed when the Gov­ern­ment scrapped a de­ci­sion to in­tro­duce a bill in Par­lia­ment that set a $25,000 sav­ings cap for pen­sion el­i­gi­bil­i­ty. In an­nounc­ing that the bill was be­ing re­scind­ed, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour at­trib­uted the er­ror to an un­named pub­lic ser­vant.

Bad news, good news

On De­cem­ber 18, a 14-year-old boy was ab­duct­ed from his fa­ther’s busi­ness in St Au­gus­tine. How­ev­er, the sto­ry had a pos­i­tive end­ing when Za­heer Samuel was found alive af­ter 17 hours. He was aban­doned by his ab­duc­tors in a forest­ed area in San Pablo, Va­len­cia, and was left blood­ied from thorny bush­es and ra­zor grass that cut at his feet as he walked to safe­ty. Samuel man­aged to find his way in­to a stranger’s house, who con­tact­ed the po­lice and helped re­unite him with his fam­i­ly.

On a lighter note, his­to­ry was made when pan­nist Joshua Re­grel­lo played the na­tion­al in­stru­ment for 31 hours in an at­tempt to set a Guin­ness World Record. The na­tion will learn if he met the re­quire­ments in about three months.

Re­grel­lo be­gan around 6.30 am on De­cem­ber 27, and fin­ished at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 12.30 pm on De­cem­ber 28. Sev­er­al artiste per­formed along­side him to help keep his mo­men­tum go­ing. Orig­i­nal­ly aim­ing for a 30-hour tar­get, Re­grel­lo ex­ceed­ed it by an hour, bring­ing to­geth­er the di­verse peo­ple of T&T to fly the na­tion­al flag high and end the year on a cel­e­bra­to­ry note.