Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les is claim­ing that should an­oth­er po­lit­i­cal par­ty as­sume of­fice af­ter the April 28 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance in treat­ing crime may no longer be forth­com­ing.

Gon­za­les made the com­ment dur­ing his fea­ture ad­dress at the re­open­ing of the San Rafael Po­lice Sta­tion yes­ter­day.

“I want to put you all on no­tice that our in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies are look­ing at us very care­ful­ly and they are say­ing that if we are not care­ful that those who are put in of­fice, es­pe­cial­ly those who are put in charge of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, they will not co­op­er­ate with us. If, God for­bid, these peo­ple take of­fice, our fight against crime will be dealt a se­ri­ous blow be­cause we can­not put crim­i­nals in of­fice if we want to fight back against crim­i­nals,” Gon­za­les said.

Asked to elab­o­rate and iden­ti­fy which for­eign agency/agen­cies made the com­ment, Gon­za­les said: “I can­not tell you who those part­ners are be­cause it is not in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­ests to di­vulge those part­ners, save to say that they are look­ing on at what is tak­ing place. They have their con­cerns that a lot of peo­ple who are now vy­ing for po­lit­i­cal of­fice in Trinidad and To­ba­go are sub­ject to the scruti­ny of law en­force­ment agen­cies, not on­ly in Trinidad and To­ba­go but around the world. It gives the sense that a lot of them who are now vy­ing for po­lit­i­cal of­fice, their main ob­jec­tive is to en­sure that those mat­ters come to an end, and they will not have their day in court.”

He said if vot­ers elect his sup­posed crim­i­nal­ly en­tan­gled op­po­nents, the un­known in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners will “have to re-eval­u­ate their lev­el of co­op­er­a­tion and their will­ing­ness to co­op­er­ate with law en­force­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go.”

Asked if he found this to be ex­ter­nal po­lit­i­cal pres­sure, Gon­za­les said no, adding that crime fight­ing is a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort. He said if crim­i­nals as­sume of­fice, then the coun­try will lose the re­spect of in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tions, which will un­der­mine the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts, as the in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port­ers will not be will­ing to share crit­i­cal in­tel­li­gence.

Gon­za­les, who was ap­point­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter on March 17, did not say when he re­ceived the warn­ing. He added that he al­so did not want to say when last he spoke with the in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies.

“One of the things that we need to do as a coun­try is to en­sure that those that we re­pose our trust and con­fi­dence, that they not on­ly main­tain the trust and con­fi­dence of the peo­ple in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but our part­ners in the re­gion and our part­ners in­ter­na­tion­al­ly can feel that sense of con­fi­dence that they are speak­ing to peo­ple who are on the same page with them.”

Con­tact­ed for com­ment on Gon­za­les’ claims, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress shad­ow na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal said he would re­spond on the po­lit­i­cal plat­form last night.

In 2022, the US threat­ened to with­hold sup­port for the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice af­ter two men died in po­lice cus­tody, forc­ing the re­struc­tur­ing of the then Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Re­sponse Team (SORT). At the time, then act­ing po­lice com­mis­sion­er Mc Don­ald Ja­cob said in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port for the po­lice was threat­ened as a re­sult of SORT’s al­leged in­volve­ment in the deaths of An­drew “So­lo” Mor­ris and Joel Bel­con.

Ja­cob said then that the po­lice ex­ec­u­tive re­ceived two re­ports on the deaths of the de­tainees from the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty and in­tel­li­gence from “in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners.”

The men were sus­pects in the kid­nap­ping and mur­der of 22-year-old An­drea Bharatt. The court clerk dis­ap­peared on Jan­u­ary 29, 2021, and her body was found in the Heights of Aripo on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2021.