Con­gress of the Peo­ple (COP) po­lit­i­cal leader Prakash Ra­mad­har has en­dorsed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­ci­sion to sup­port the Unit­ed States and its in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners in tak­ing a stronger stance against nar­co­traf­fick­ing and nar­co-states.

Ra­mad­har said Trinidad and To­ba­go could not con­tin­ue to sit idly by while cor­rup­tion, or­gan­ised crime, and the drug trade erod­ed the na­tion’s in­sti­tu­tions. He warned that crim­i­nal­i­ty had al­ready seeped in­to schools, with gangs re­cruit­ing chil­dren and ex­pos­ing them to drugs at younger ages.

“The play­ground is now be­com­ing a place of re­cruit­ment for the foot sol­diers of mur­der and may­hem, by gang lead­ers who are them­selves con­trolled by an ever-es­ca­lat­ing hi­er­ar­chy of in­ter­na­tion­al and so­phis­ti­cat­ed or­gan­i­sa­tions,” he said.

Ra­mad­har ar­gued that sov­er­eign­ty and in­de­pen­dence could not ex­ist in a state over­run by crime and cor­rup­tion, stress­ing that ex­ter­nal as­sis­tance was crit­i­cal giv­en per­cep­tions of in­fil­tra­tion and com­pro­mise with­in the lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus.

“With an in­fil­trat­ed and com­pro­mised lo­cal se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus, it be­comes ob­vi­ous that ex­ter­nal eyes and bod­ies are most im­por­tant as an ini­tial step to se­cur­ing our bor­ders and pro­tect­ing our free­dom-lov­ing way of life,” he said.

He ap­plaud­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for recog­nis­ing the need to col­lab­o­rate with the US and oth­er na­tions, adding that shared val­ues of free­dom, lib­er­ty, law and or­der made such co­op­er­a­tion nec­es­sary.

Ra­mad­har al­so praised US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio for build­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al coali­tion to con­front what he de­scribed as a “hy­dra-head­ed mon­ster” of glob­al crim­i­nal net­works.

“Work­ing to­geth­er in a coali­tion of the will­ing and able is far bet­ter than go­ing alone, and Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Ru­bio must be sup­port­ed in his ef­forts,” he said.

He al­so com­mend­ed the Prime Min­is­ter for what he de­scribed as fore­sight and clar­i­ty of pur­pose.

“I con­grat­u­late our gov­ern­ment and our Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her fore­sight and vi­sion to note this mo­ment in our his­to­ry and her hav­ing the strength and clar­i­ty of pur­pose to sup­port the joint ef­fort to re­store law and or­der, peace and pros­per­i­ty; not on­ly for Trinidad and To­ba­go, but for the re­gion, and ul­ti­mate­ly set a new world or­der against in­ter­na­tion­al crim­i­nal­i­ty for hu­man­i­ty’s sake,” Ra­mad­har said.