Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

What is need­ed now amongst all the oth­er sug­ges­tions in the fight against crime is a state of emer­gency in Trinidad and To­ba­go, says Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

“Every­thing else has been tried and test­ed,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar added among her points dur­ing last night’s UNC An­ti-crime Town Hall Meet­ing at the Er­ic Williams Au­di­to­ri­um, La Joya Com­plex, St Joseph.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar echoed the view of the pre­vi­ous speak­er, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, who had said she thought the coun­try needs a state of emer­gency to ad­dress the run­away crime and mur­der rate.

“I think we need a state of emer­gency every day, every time I hear those guns ring­ing out around me...” Ram­per­sad said.

Speak­ing af­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she want­ed to cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly agree with Ram­per­sad. She said for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith (now NTA leader), an­oth­er speak­er at the fo­rum, would al­so agree with her giv­en what the PP gov­ern­ment had achieved with crime.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said while many con­demned her PP gov­ern­ment for im­ple­ment­ing a state of emer­gency (SoE) in 2011, it ad­dressed the crime prob­lem at the time.

“I re­mem­ber one week­end there were 11 mur­ders in one week­end then, and we called all the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty peo­ple to­geth­er... what do we do? ... You have all the laws on the books, you have all the schools, you have all the so­cial grants, the Min­istry of So­cial De­vel­op­ment—you had all these oth­ers things we’re speak­ing about and you know what made the dif­fer­ence, the state of emer­gency we in­sti­tut­ed then,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“Yes we got a lot of ‘pong’ for it, but you know what hap­pened? The crime went down. It worked in T&T. So, I ask you to con­sid­er that as we go for­ward for these crime talks and we’ll have fur­ther dis­cus­sions on it.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar added, “It’s not some­thing the Op­po­si­tion can do but it is some­thing that is re­al­ly def­i­nite­ly need­ed at this time if we are to feel safe ... as you say Dr Ram­per­sad, every­one is liv­ing in fear, crime is af­fect­ing every­one.”

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds didn’t im­me­di­ate­ly re­spond to the T&T Guardian’s What­sApped query on his view of the Op­po­si­tion Leader’s state­ment last night.

Al­so at UNC’s fo­rum, Per­sad-Bisses­sar not­ed points made by an­oth­er speak­er, pathol­o­gist Dr Hu­bert Dais­ley.

“So we’ve come a long way but we haven’t come a bet­ter way from those days, in­clud­ing those days of Mano Ben­jamin,” she added.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the youths who are wield­ing the guns don’t have the mon­ey to buy them and the so­lu­tions be­ing sought on the prob­lem must in­clude stem­ming the in­flow of guns.

“You can’t just blame young men and women out there, we need to look fur­ther in­to where they’re get­ting mon­ey for those guns or who is arm­ing them and giv­ing them these guns—that’s a very im­por­tant point.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the sec­ond is­sue is where the guns are com­ing in now, adding that was via le­gal and il­le­gal ports of en­try.

“So, the is­sue is our very porous bor­ders ... I re­mem­ber, our team (in gov­ern­ment) con­cerned about those very porous bor­ders and how to block those from com­ing in.”

She cit­ed the “mar­itime wall” the PP gov­ern­ment had want­ed to “en­cir­cle” T&T with and al­so en­ter­ing man­groves and us­ing hov­er­craft to pa­trol ar­eas.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said yes­ter­day’s event was the first of many. Among per­sons speak­ing at the fo­rum, busi­ness­man Robert Amar called for en­force­ment of the death penal­ty and a law against the guns and oth­er sug­ges­tions, which Per­sad-Bisses­sar said were good ideas and would be not­ed by her par­ty go­ing for­ward.