Dix­ie-Ann Dick­son

While the cur­few may have neg­a­tive­ly im­pact­ed on the lo­cal busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, the state of emer­gency is not a de­ter­rent for in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors. This is the view of for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship sen­a­tor Dr Patrick Wat­son, who was speak­ing on Wednes­day at a fo­rum: State of Emer­gency: A Nec­es­sary Evil? held at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St Au­gus­tine. Wat­son is al­so di­rec­tor of the Sir Arthur Lewis In­sti­tute of So­cial and Eco­nom­ic Stud­ies (Salis­es), which host­ed the fo­rum. Wat­son, who called on the Gov­ern­ment to get rid of the cur­few, ex­plained that it was the cur­few, and not the state of emer­gency, that has been af­fect­ing busi­ness­es. He said the small- to medi­um-sized busi­ness­es (SMEs) were call­ing for a cost ben­e­fit analy­sis to be done.

"There are some con­cerns among the SMEs, es­pe­cial­ly the restau­rant trade in­dus­try, for this to be done as they have been neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed," Wat­son said. Dur­ing the dis­cus­sion, a par­tic­i­pant asked if the cur­few would re­vert to 9 pm to 5 am. Ram­bachan said the mat­ter is be­ing dri­ven by na­tion­al in­tel­li­gence and if the Gov­ern­ment is guid­ed so to do, then it would. The cur­few hours are cur­rent­ly un­der re­view by the Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-chaired Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. How­ev­er, Wat­son said, "I am not sup­port­ive of go­ing back to the 9 pm to 5 am cur­few...I think we should get rid of it." Re­gard­ing the state of emer­gency, Wat­son stat­ed that this move was an en­cour­age­ment to in­vestors.

"I have not heard any com­plaints since the an­nounce­ment of the state of emer­gency and there is no ev­i­dence that in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors want to pull out of T&T." He quick­ly added that he was judg­ing the Gov­ern­ment on its ra­tio­nale for im­pos­ing a state of emer­gency."I will judge them on the ba­sis on what they have said...if they are ly­ing, then it would show." Mean­while, oth­er pan­elists, se­nior lec­tur­er, cul­tur­al ac­tivist and nov­el­ist Dr Mer­le Hodge of UWI, and Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tor Ter­rence Deyals­ingh, called for ef­fec­tive polic­ing dur­ing and af­ter state of emer­gency and for an end to po­lice abuse of pow­er.

Deyals­ingh said the se­cu­ri­ty forces dis­play in­equity in their ap­proach to fight­ing crime, which has re­sult­ed in class dis­crim­i­na­tion. He said that all ar­rests were so far made un­der nor­mal polic­ing ac­tiv­i­ty and not one ar­rest was made un­der the pow­ers of the state of emer­gency. Asked by the me­dia if the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment would sup­port an­oth­er ex­ten­sion of the emer­gency, Deyals­ingh said he can­not pre­dict the fu­ture, but "if it's un­der these same con­di­tions, it would be dif­fi­cult to do so."