KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­er@guardian.co.tt

The Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment is warn­ing that an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE) ex­ten­sion is on its way.

This, as Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day strong­ly de­nied claims by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie that a “na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ci­dent” trig­gered height­ened se­cu­ri­ty for Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs) and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in the Red House last Fri­day.

In­stead, Gon­za­les is warn­ing the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment is fab­ri­cat­ing a cri­sis to jus­ti­fy ex­tend­ing the cur­rent SoE de­clared on March 3.

In a scathing re­buke dur­ing an Op­po­si­tion me­dia con­fer­ence at the Of­fice of the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion in Port-of-Spain, Gon­za­les said he was present in the Par­lia­ment un­til late Fri­day evening and nei­ther he nor any Op­po­si­tion MP ex­pe­ri­enced dis­rup­tions or ob­served height­ened se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols.

He said, “It is a great and a grand de­cep­tion led by the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al… When we left the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day night, there was no height­ened sense of se­cu­ri­ty or pres­ence around the Par­lia­ment. When we stayed in the Par­lia­ment from 1.30 up to 7 pm, no one briefed us as Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment. No one briefed the Leader of the Op­po­si­tion that there were spe­cif­ic threats sur­round­ing the Par­lia­ment against Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment and, there­fore, cer­tain ac­tions had to be tak­en to en­sure we were safe. Ab­solute­ly noth­ing. As a mat­ter of fact, when we left, most of the Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials had al­ready left be­cause they had an­oth­er en­gage­ment.”

In Gon­za­les’ view, this was just Je­re­mie’s way of set­ting up the plot be­fore com­ing to de­clare three more months liv­ing un­der an SoE.

Asked if he was fear­ful for his own safe­ty, Gon­za­les said while he is al­ways alert wher­ev­er he goes, he did not be­lieve any of the claims Je­re­mie de­scribed.

Asked if Op­po­si­tion mem­bers had re­ceived ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty since then, he said no. And asked if there was any un­usu­al be­hav­iour in the Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, he said ab­solute­ly not. He said the on­ly de­vi­a­tion from the nor­mal pro­ceed­ings in the Red House was the vis­it from In­dia’s Ex­ter­nal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Sub­rah­manyam Jais­hankar and stu­dents who were there to re­ceive lap­tops.

He al­so said no ad­di­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty pro­to­cols have been im­ple­ment­ed since Je­re­mie’s an­nounce­ment and the Low­er House had met since then with no ex­tra se­cu­ri­ty ei­ther.

Gon­za­les al­so ac­cused the AG of rop­ing in Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice (CoP) Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to mis­lead the pub­lic.

As such, Gon­za­les warned Gue­var­ro, “I want to ad­vise the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, do not al­low your of­fice to be used as the mouth­piece of pro­pa­gan­da by this UNC Gov­ern­ment.”

He added, “What the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al is do­ing on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and bring­ing in­to his de­cep­tion, is no oth­er of­fice than the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice. What is hap­pen­ing in this coun­try is the Gov­ern­ment, be­ing in an em­bar­rass­ing and most un­com­fort­able po­si­tion where this failed State of Emer­gency is con­cerned and where it is plan­ning to ex­tend the State of Pub­lic Emer­gency in Trinidad and To­ba­go, they are now set­ting the stage to play with the minds of the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to ex­tend this State of Emer­gency in the month of June for a fur­ther three months. It is noth­ing but a great and grand de­cep­tion be­ing led by none oth­er than the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of Trinidad and To­ba­go and bring­ing in­to play the Of­fice of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice.”

The Op­po­si­tion is now call­ing for both Je­re­mie and Gue­var­ro to be fired, as Gon­za­les claims they are mis­lead­ing the coun­try.

“If you are in the midst of a State of Emer­gency, gangs are still mur­der­ing peo­ple and mur­der­ing each oth­er, they are go­ing in­to po­lice sta­tions and mur­der­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, steal­ing am­mu­ni­tion and now they are threat­en­ing Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment, so what on earth are we do­ing un­der a State of Emer­gency? He (Je­re­mie) should be fired and if the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice is sup­port­ing what he is do­ing, then the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice should al­so be fired be­cause the peo­ple of this coun­try gave up their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to em­pow­er the po­lice to pro­tect them and you have the gall to come and tell us our lives are at stake? Then God help us!” he said.

He said the UNC in­tends to keep the coun­try un­der SoEs for the next four years be­cause they have no an­ti-crime plan, adding the Op­po­si­tion may be left with no choice but to take the State to court for what he al­leged is its un­con­sti­tu­tion­al re­peat­ed use of SoEs.

Gon­za­les re­vealed that he’s al­ready been in talks with col­leagues in the le­gal fra­ter­ni­ty con­cern­ing tak­ing the mat­ter to court.

On Wednes­day in the Low­er House, Je­re­mie said Gue­var­ro had au­tho­rised him to an­nounce that a gang-re­lat­ed threat had led to in­creased se­cu­ri­ty for MPs and Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials. The CoP al­so backed up the AG’s state­ment. How­ev­er, no men­tion was made on whether the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil had met on the is­sue, or if any­one was held or charged for said threats.

Guardian Me­dia reached out to both Je­re­mie and Gue­var­ro yes­ter­day on the is­sue but re­ceived no re­sponse up to press time.

SoEs un­der UNC

On Ju­ly 18, 2025, just three months af­ter the UNC came in­to of­fice, an SoE was de­clared.

At the time, CoP Gue­var­ro said there was an emer­gence of a “co­or­di­nat­ed and high­ly dan­ger­ous crim­i­nal net­work op­er­at­ing from with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cor­rec­tion­al fa­cil­i­ties” and that the net­work was ac­tive­ly mo­bil­is­ing re­sources and or­ches­trat­ing tar­get­ed at­tacks against se­nior of­fi­cials and na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

Ten days lat­er, on Ju­ly 28, it was ex­tend­ed by three months.

On Oc­to­ber 31, it was fur­ther ex­tend­ed for an­oth­er three months, end­ing on Jan­u­ary 31.

The sec­ond SoE came in­to ef­fect on March 3.

That time, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar said se­cu­ri­ty brief­in­gs pre­sent­ed to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil re­vealed a trou­bling in­crease in vi­o­lent crime across the coun­try, much of it linked to or­gan­ised crim­i­nal gangs.

In mid-March, it was ex­tend­ed for three months.

The cur­rent SoE will come to an end next month.