Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

The coali­tion of 13 in­de­pen­dent trade unions and the Na­tion­al Trade Union Cen­tre of Trinidad and To­ba­go (NATUC) have sharply crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s de­fence of con­tro­ver­sial State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions re­strict­ing pub­lic as­sem­blies with­in 500 me­tres of 15 des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tions, ar­gu­ing that democ­ra­cy can­not be re­duced to a cal­cu­la­tion of land space.

The back­lash fol­lowed re­marks by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in Par­lia­ment on Wednes­day, in which she dis­missed claims that the reg­u­la­tions in­fringe on cit­i­zens’ rights to protest.

Re­spond­ing to a let­ter de­liv­ered by union rep­re­sen­ta­tives out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the protest it­self demon­strat­ed that cit­i­zens were still free to as­sem­ble.

“These peo­ple de­liv­ered a let­ter to my of­fice yes­ter­day and a re­sponse will be forth­com­ing,” she said. “You’re out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and you’re say­ing you can­not protest, but you’re out there.”

The Prime Min­is­ter ar­gued that the re­stric­tions af­fect on­ly a frac­tion of the coun­try’s land area. She told Par­lia­ment that while Trinidad and To­ba­go com­pris­es ap­prox­i­mate­ly 5,131 square kilo­me­tres, the ex­clu­sion zones sur­round­ing the 15 pro­tect­ed sites to­tal just 11.77 square kilo­me­tres, or 0.23 per cent of the na­tion’s ter­ri­to­ry.

But the coali­tion of 13 trade unions ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of be­ing dis­mis­sive of con­cerns about civ­il lib­er­ties and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion.

“It is quite un­for­tu­nate that the Prime Min­is­ter and her Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ue to be dis­mis­sive of this in­ten­tion­al ero­sion of our civ­il lib­er­ties,” the group said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

The unions ar­gued that the is­sue is not the amount of phys­i­cal space avail­able for demon­stra­tions, but whether cit­i­zens can ef­fec­tive­ly com­mu­ni­cate their con­cerns to de­ci­sion-mak­ers.

The coali­tion al­so de­fend­ed the his­toric sig­nif­i­cance of Wood­ford Square, one of the lo­ca­tions af­fect­ed by the re­stric­tions.

“Wood­ford Square is not just a lo­ca­tion. It is a sym­bol of our de­mo­c­ra­t­ic his­to­ry,” the state­ment said, cit­ing its role in the labour up­ris­ings of the 1930s and the Black Pow­er move­ment of 1970.

NATUC sec­re­tary gen­er­al Michael An­nisette said the Prime Min­is­ter’s ar­gu­ment missed the cen­tral is­sue.

“Democ­ra­cy is not mea­sured in square kilo­me­tres,” An­nisette said in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

“It is mea­sured by the abil­i­ty of cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise their rights in a mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive man­ner.”

AHe ar­gued that the re­al ques­tion is whether cit­i­zens can peace­ful­ly as­sem­ble “with­in sight and sound of those who hold po­lit­i­cal pow­er and make de­ci­sions that di­rect­ly af­fect their lives.” He main­tained that re­lo­cat­ing protests to dis­tant lo­ca­tions where they can­not be seen or heard de­feats the pur­pose of de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ex­pres­sion.

NATUC fur­ther ar­gued that the coun­try’s press­ing con­cerns in­clude crime, eco­nom­ic un­cer­tain­ty, job in­se­cu­ri­ty and de­clin­ing pub­lic con­fi­dence in in­sti­tu­tions—not where cit­i­zens are per­mit­ted to protest. The or­gan­i­sa­tion warned that re­strict­ing demon­stra­tions near cen­tres of pow­er could deep­en per­cep­tions that pub­lic voic­es are be­ing pushed fur­ther from de­ci­sion-mak­ers.

Call­ing for con­sul­ta­tion, An­nisette urged Gov­ern­ment to re­con­sid­er any mea­sures that un­nec­es­sar­i­ly lim­it peace­ful protest and to en­gage trade unions, civ­il so­ci­ety groups and the wider pub­lic be­fore im­ple­ment­ing changes that af­fect con­sti­tu­tion­al free­doms.

The reg­u­la­tions re­main in force un­der the ex­tend­ed State of Emer­gency, with the Gov­ern­ment main­tain­ing that they are nec­es­sary to pro­tect crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture, diplo­mat­ic mis­sions and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­ests.