GUARDIAN ME­DIA IN­VES­TI­GA­TIONS DESK

The im­pend­ing ex­it of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds from elec­toral pol­i­tics caught many in the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) by sur­prise last week. Hinds’ de­ci­sion to not con­test his Laven­tille West seat in the next gen­er­al elec­tion was an­nounced by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at a post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing on Thurs­day. Row­ley said he had “no hand” in it and was very dis­ap­point­ed as Hinds has been with the par­ty for a long time.

The news came on the heels of the Laven­tille West Women’s League mem­bers vot­ing in sup­port of at­tor­ney Ka­reem Mar­celle over Hinds to rep­re­sent the PNM strong­hold area in next year’s gen­er­al elec­tion.

Dur­ing his tenure as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, there have been nu­mer­ous calls for Hinds’ res­ig­na­tion giv­en the high mur­der rates and seem­ing­ly, the Gov­ern­ment’s in­abil­i­ty to curb crime. How­ev­er, Hinds has been chal­lenged for the seat by Ka­reem Mar­celle, a young PNM at­tor­ney.

Screen­ing for the seat is sched­uled for to­mor­row.

There are mixed views on Hinds’ de­ci­sion. Par­ty sources said it is an in­di­ca­tion that the Prime Min­is­ter is re­ju­ve­nat­ing the par­ty and is com­mit­ted to chang­ing things ahead of the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Guardian Me­dia was told that with­in PNM cir­cles many are ask­ing whether Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert will be the next to go. Sources won­dered whether Im­bert would be as ‘will­ing’ as Hinds to com­ply. Par­ty sources praised the move, point­ing out that the op­po­si­tion Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gres (UNC) has shown no signs of trans­for­ma­tion from the fa­mil­iar.

How­ev­er, there’s al­so a view that Hinds is be­ing asked to step aside be­cause of, what they termed, “a less than sat­is­fac­to­ry” per­for­mance by Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Er­la Christo­pher-Hare­wood in deal­ing with crime. Par­ty sources said the Gov­ern­ment is ‘stuck’ with the cur­rent CoP be­cause, as de­ter­mined by the Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, it can­not look for a re­place­ment un­til the CoP’s con­tract has ex­pired.

Some par­ty mem­bers be­lieve Hinds has brave­ly stepped aside to ush­er in much-need­ed change with­in the par­ty. They de­scribed him as a hard-work­ing man who put the par­ty and coun­try be­fore him­self.

PNM sources told Guardian Me­dia that par­ty mem­bers are watch­ing the nom­i­na­tion process for the three Diego Mar­tin seats, the two Port-of-Spain seats and the To­ba­go seats close­ly. Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne is in line for one of the Diego Mar­tin seats. Browne served as MP for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral dur­ing the Man­ning ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Praise for Hinds

Min­is­ters and gov­ern­ment MPs show­ered prais­es on Hinds for his ded­i­cat­ed ser­vice. They said Hinds al­ways held his head high, they will miss his fiery con­tri­bu­tions in the House and his au­then­tic­i­ty and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion should be em­u­lat­ed.

Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian said in a What­sApp mes­sage to the Sun­day Guardian that Hinds’ de­ci­sion to bow out of the 2025 elec­tion race as a can­di­date “marks the end of an era de­fined by ded­i­ca­tion and ser­vice,” adding, “it is a mo­ment for re­flec­tion and grat­i­tude for his im­mense con­tri­bu­tions.”

The D’Abadie/O’Meara MP said Hinds’ “de­par­ture will present an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the par­ty to build on his lega­cy and up­hold the prin­ci­ples he cham­pi­oned.”

On a per­son­al note, Mor­ris-Ju­lian said she deeply ad­mired Hinds’ stead­fast com­mit­ment to val­ues and his re­mark­able abil­i­ty to in­spire through words. She de­scribed him as an or­a­tor and an en­cour­ag­ing cheer­leader.

“He of­ten urged me to speak up and was al­ways avail­able for a qui­et word of ad­vice,” she said.

Above all, she said, Hinds was a kind and thought­ful col­league who tru­ly lis­tened and act­ed with his coun­try’s best in­ter­ests at heart.

“His au­then­tic­i­ty and un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion are qual­i­ties we should all strive to em­u­late,” Mor­ris-Ju­lian added.

Health Min­is­ter Ter­rance Deyals­ingh said he con­sid­ered Hinds as his broth­er.

“I start­ed with him in the Sen­ate in those dark days of 2010 af­ter we lost the gen­er­al elec­tion,” he said.

Deyals­ingh, the St Joseph MP, said their paths even­tu­al­ly took them in­to Gov­ern­ment and “Mr Hinds held his head high.” De­scrib­ing Hinds as a fierce de­bater, ex­cel­lent at­tor­ney and min­is­ter, Deyals­ingh said he would cher­ish the years they spent in Par­lia­ment.

“I wish him well in the next phase of his life. I am sure he still has a lot to con­tribute to na­tion build­ing and he will al­ways be my broth­er now and for­ev­er. Jah Rasta­fari!”

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter and Lopinot/Bon Air West MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les said, “I will miss Hinds tremen­dous­ly ... es­pe­cial­ly lis­ten­ing to his fiery con­tri­bu­tions in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. He is an hon­est man who un­der­stands the true na­ture of our so­ci­ety and what it means to be in lead­er­ship here. I look for­ward to the next phase of his con­tri­bu­tions to PNM and the coun­try.”

PNM’s Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary and Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice Fos­ter Cum­mings said as a mem­ber of the par­ty’s screen­ing com­mit­tee it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for him to com­ment.

More than a dozen min­is­ters, gov­ern­ment sen­a­tors and MPs were sent ques­tions about Hinds’ ex­it but failed to re­spond.

Hinds’ high­lights

Hinds is no new­com­er to the po­lit­i­cal are­na and con­tro­ver­sy. From 1995 to 2001 he was an Op­po­si­tion MP un­der then po­lit­i­cal leader Patrick Man­ning.

In 1995, Hinds was first elect­ed MP for Laven­tille West/Mor­vant where he served for 12 years. On Sep­tem­ber 7, 2015, he was elect­ed as MP for Laven­tille West un­der Row­ley’s regime.

Hinds, born in 1956, was giv­en an­oth­er term as MP in 2020.

Be­fore tak­ing up his cur­rent po­si­tion as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter in April 2021, Hinds was ap­point­ed an op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor and pre­vi­ous­ly served as Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, Pub­lic Util­i­ties, Min­is­ter of State in the Min­istry of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion and In­for­ma­tion, Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs and Trade and In­dus­try.

In the 44 months Hinds has been serv­ing as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter there have been 2,107 mur­ders.

Of the 1,322 days he spent on the job, Hinds has been the longest-serv­ing of all the min­is­ters since 2013. These in­clud­ed Stu­art Young, Ed­mund Dil­lon, Carl Al­fon­so and Gary Grif­fith.

Un­der Hinds’ tenure as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, the na­tion record­ed its high­est mur­der rate of 605 in 2022. Last year’s mur­der count was 577 and as 2024 comes to a close, the mur­der rate has al­ready crossed 560.

With cit­i­zens ex­press­ing in­creas­ing un­ease about the soar­ing mur­der toll, Hinds’ com­ments on crime pro­vid­ed lit­tle com­fort.

In Feb­ru­ary 2022 dur­ing an in­ter­view with a talk show host, Hinds said his du­ty was not to en­sure that cit­i­zens feel safe and se­cure. His state­ment an­gered many, in­clud­ing the Op­po­si­tion, who stat­ed it was a “shame­less ab­di­ca­tion of min­is­te­r­i­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.”

Faced with a mount­ing mur­der rate, Hinds was asked in March of 2023 about his crime plan. How­ev­er, he stat­ed that a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment does not gen­er­ate or cre­ate a crime plan.

“That is a mat­ter for the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, the De­fence Force that sup­ports the po­lice,” he said.

Dur­ing Hinds’ tenure as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, the Gov­ern­ment has in­tro­duced sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion, aimed at im­prov­ing the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem. Among them were the Bail Amend­ment Bill, the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act, the Firearms Bill and the Whistle­blow­er Pro­tec­tion Bill.

Last May, the ju­di­cia­ry had cause to con­demn a con­tro­ver­sial state­ment by Hinds al­leg­ing that crim­i­nals have friends with­in that fra­ter­ni­ty. It caused High Court Judge Davin­dra Ram­per­sad to chas­tise Hinds for fail­ing to ap­pear in court to clar­i­fy his state­ments, say­ing the com­ment left a dark cloud over the ju­di­cia­ry.

In Jan­u­ary, Hinds said one of his biggest achieve­ments was see­ing Gary Grif­fith ex­it as po­lice com­mis­sion­er. He cast blame on Grif­fith for fu­elling gun vi­o­lence in T&T, not­ing the thou­sands of Firearm Users Li­cens­es (FULs) is­sued dur­ing his tenure.

Al­though il­le­gal firearms are re­spon­si­ble for the vast ma­jor­i­ty of mur­ders, Hinds con­tin­ues to claim there is an in­crease in the num­ber of le­gal guns used to com­mit crimes. His state­ments drew crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion and firearm deal­ers.

Hinds will al­so be re­mem­bered for be­ing doused with flood­wa­ters on Au­gust 14, 2018, and chased out of Beetham Gar­dens by res­i­dents who ac­cused him of do­ing noth­ing for them. At the time of the in­ci­dent, Hinds was act­ing AG. Fol­low­ing an in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Beetham res­i­dent Richard “Snake” Mar­celle, who was charged with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage and as­sault by beat­ing, plead­ed guilty. He was fined $400 on both of­fences.

In 2020, An­der­son Wil­son who was al­so charged with us­ing ob­scene lan­guage to the an­noy­ance of Hinds, was sen­tenced to sev­en days in jail.

Three years ago, a Mar­aval fam­i­ly’s dog was killed af­ter it was hit by a se­cu­ri­ty ve­hi­cle dri­ving Hinds to his home. The fam­i­ly claimed the ve­hi­cle was speed­ing and failed to stop. Hinds, how­ev­er, apol­o­gised.

On Fri­day, Hinds did not re­spond to ques­tions sent by the Sun­day Guardian. He al­so avoid­ed ques­tions sur­round­ing his last-minute with­draw­al, on­ly hint­ing it was “per­son­al.” Mar­celle al­so opt­ed not to com­ment.