Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour will re­spond on Fri­day to a com­plaint about UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments to “light up” crim­i­nals and “emp­ty the whole clip” on them when they come to in­vade peo­ple’s homes.

The coun­cil is re­view­ing at least six com­plaints about var­i­ous po­lit­i­cal par­ties ac­cused of breach­ing its code as the cam­paign for elec­tions on Au­gust 14 con­tin­ues, and the com­plaint against Per­sad-Bisses­sar is among those.

The coun­cil will re­spond by to­day on the is­sue in­volv­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the five oth­er mat­ters be­fore it.  

The Code of Eth­i­cal Po­lit­i­cal Con­duct—which par­ties, coali­tions and their can­di­dates sup­pos­ed­ly agreed to—in­cludes 20 points rang­ing from warn­ings against of­fer­ing in­duce­ment or re­ward to an­oth­er per­son, to not in­dulging in “neg­a­tive” cam­paign­ing.  

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­ceived crit­i­cisms from var­i­ous quar­ters for the con­tro­ver­sial state­ment she made to sup­port­ers at Mon­day’s UNC meet­ing at Ch­agua­nas in fur­ther­ance of her pro­posed “stand your ground” law. The Op­po­si­tion Leader had loud­ly ad­vo­cat­ed, “So, when the crim­i­nals in­vade your home, draw your li­cenced firearm and light them up! Emp­ty the whole clip! Re­load! Fight fire with fire!”

The Coun­cil for Re­spon­si­ble Po­lit­i­cal Be­hav­iour which was ex­am­in­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s state­ment at yes­ter­day’s meet­ing, re­ceived a com­plaint from a per­son who re­mained anony­mous.

Yes­ter­day, Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment of­fi­cials did not say whether they had com­plained to the coun­cil about Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks, though the par­ty’s Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer Faris Al-Rawi had ex­pressed con­cern about it.

Among the six com­plaints to the coun­cil is one from the UNC al­leg­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley re­ferred to Per­sad-Bisses­sar as a “drunk and falling down”. UNC of­fi­cials con­firmed that they com­plained to the coun­cil on mat­ters. UNC PRO Kirk Meighoo did not re­ply to the query on what they com­plained about.  

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance has not writ­ten to the coun­cil on any mat­ter this week, the par­ty has con­firmed.

Ear­li­er in the week, the coun­cil al­so re­ceived com­plaints from uniden­ti­fied peo­ple about the lan­guage by UNC’s Jack Warn­er and Anil Roberts re­cent­ly. —with re­port­ing by DA­REECE PO­LO

 Not so, Kam­la

... busi­ness groups frown on in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ment

Re­gard­less of the coun­cil’s views on Per­sad-Bissesssr’s “light them up” com­ment, the busi­ness sec­tor has tak­en its stance on it.

The Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce has not­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s re­marks and warned that “vi­o­lence begets vi­o­lence”. The Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of Com­merce has al­so frowned on the in­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments, while the T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has list­ed how Firearm Users’ Li­cences should be grant­ed. 

Vivek Char­ran, the head of the Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­bers, said he sup­ports her call since he wants the right to de­fend him­self. Char­ran de­tailed home in­va­sions of well-known West­ern busi­ness peo­ple hos­pi­talised af­ter the at­tack.

How­ev­er, Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber Pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh said, “We in the GS­FCC  be­lieve that vi­o­lence begets vi­o­lence. We in T&T have to be care­ful in us­ing in­cen­di­ary lan­guage in this pe­ri­od of height­ened po­lit­i­cal anx­i­ety. Peo­ple are feel­ing the ef­fects of in­creas­ing crime–yes. But a sen­si­ble, hu­mane, law­ful ap­proach is what is need­ed, and that is more polic­ing and pa­trolling.

“The un­der­utilised as­sets of the De­fence  Force can be har­nessed as an ad­di­tion­al com­bat­ant in the fight against crime. Al­so, a so­cial in­ter­ven­tion with youths who are now find­ing crime as their on­ly op­tion  must be im­me­di­ate­ly im­ple­ment­ed.”

Singh added, “There­fore, the ap­proach is twofold and maybe more, but more emo­tion­al­ism will get us nowhere.”

TTMA Pres­i­dent Roger Roach said, “We be­lieve that Firearms Users’ Li­cences should be grant­ed to suit­ably qual­i­fied, vet­ted and trained cit­i­zens. The car­ry­ing of a firearm is a se­ri­ous re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and the dis­charge of a weapon like a firearm should on­ly be done  in ac­cor­dance with the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go in the case of a le­git­i­mate threat.”

Bal­dath Ma­haraj, the chair­man of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce said yes­ter­day, “This cham­ber ful­ly un­der­stands the emo­tions in­volved in is­sues re­lat­ed to crimes, es­pe­cial­ly with vic­tims of home in­va­sions. The Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Elec­tion is rapid­ly ap­proach­ing and some re­marks could be in­flam­ma­to­ry to woo po­lit­i­cal sup­port. Whilst we pre­fer not to get in­to pol­i­tics, firearms are to be used to pro­tect the lives of the hold­er.

“The law, how­ev­er, doesn’t pro­vide for the sus­pen­sion of the rights of a per­pe­tra­tor who en­ters the prop­er­ty with the in­ten­tion of com­mit­ting a crime. We strong­ly urge the au­thor­i­ties to amend the law so firearms can be used ef­fec­tive­ly by re­spon­si­ble users with a FUL. I’m not aware that a user can shoot or kill some­one who en­ters their prop­er­ty with­out ad­e­quate jus­ti­fi­ca­tion that their life was in dan­ger.”

Ma­haraj added, “In­flam­ma­to­ry state­ments like ‘emp­ty­ing the shells’ (sic) does not auger well for our so­ci­ety. We urge all politi­cians to act re­spon­si­bly in this re­gard.”