Port-of-Spain: Pa­tri­ot­ic Front leader Mick­ela Pan­day has crit­i­cised Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, ques­tion­ing the gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach to crime and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

In a Face­book post Pan­day said she was “grate­ful” if the Min­is­ter’s state­ments about for­eign as­sis­tance were true, but warned that Trinidad and To­ba­go could not re­ly on ex­ter­nal sup­port for its safe­ty.

“If what the Min­is­ter is say­ing is true, then we are cer­tain­ly grate­ful, but we must al­so be re­al­is­tic. What hap­pens when the US leaves? What hap­pens when their pri­or­i­ties shift or an­oth­er ad­min­is­tra­tion changes course? A sov­er­eign na­tion can­not out­source its se­cu­ri­ty,” Pan­day wrote.

She called for a com­pre­hen­sive do­mes­tic strat­e­gy to tack­le vi­o­lent crime, hu­man traf­fick­ing, and oth­er se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenges. “Mur­ders, rapes, kid­nap­pings, miss­ing peo­ple, these are not prob­lems we can sub­con­tract to for­eign war­ships. Ex­ter­nal sup­port can as­sist, but it can­not re­place a com­pre­hen­sive do­mes­tic strat­e­gy. Where is the long-term plan to se­cure our bor­ders, dis­man­tle traf­fick­ing net­works, pro­tect women and chil­dren, strength­en in­tel­li­gence and re­store trust in law en­force­ment?”

Pan­day added that de­pen­dence on for­eign coun­tries was “not sus­tain­able, not re­spon­si­ble and cer­tain­ly not lead­er­ship,” ar­gu­ing that fam­i­lies feel safe on­ly when their gov­ern­ment has “the strength, re­sources and po­lit­i­cal will to pro­tect them.”