Richard Ra­moutar

A crit­i­cal ex­am­i­na­tion of two key play­ers in­volved in as­pects of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty may leave more ques­tions unan­swered as op­posed to pro­vid­ing sound plau­si­ble, rea­son­able se­cu­ri­ty and pol­i­cy ad­vice that can stand in­ter­na­tion­al scruti­ny. When one as­sess­es the role and func­tion of Gary Grif­fith, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter, and Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs-Grif­fith and Gibbs, the G-string syn­drome-there ap­pears to be a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of func­tions per­haps un­re­lat­ed to the strate­gic realm of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Knowl­edge­able ex­perts in the field of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty would ar­gue that this se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­so­ry ca­pac­i­ty ought to in­cor­po­rate a com­pre­hen­sive un­der­stand­ing of the new in­ter­na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty or­der af­ter 9/11, the in­creased mil­i­tari­sa­tion and glob­al hege­mon­ic role of the US, its en­su­ing im­pact on the Caribbean as the third bor­der to the US, our co-op­er­a­tive abil­i­ty to con­tain, de­tect and de­ter transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime threats to Trinidad and To­ba­go, as well as ac­qui­si­tion of in­tel­li­gence, the safe­guard­ing of our al­lies, and the na­tion's vi­tal in­ter­ests.

This is in quite stark con­trast to many of the state­ments echoed by the cur­rent se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, which bears more like­ly the im­print of a sched­ul­ing agent and a de­fend­er of the PM's ac­tions and speech­es. Gen­er­al­ly, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­ers to Prime Min­is­ters, Pres­i­dents and Min­is­ters of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty are spe­cialised ex­perts in nu­mer­ous ar­eas of pol­i­cy plan­ning that will cater to the na­tion's se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­ests, and not that of an ex­ec­u­tive body­guard.

As the chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC), the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter would do well to con­sid­er an in­de­pen­dent body to com­pre­hen­sive­ly look at na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and the na­tion's in­ter­ests in this glob­al are­na. Her cur­rent team of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel have yet to pro­duce ei­ther a strat­e­gy or pol­i­cy doc­u­ment for pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion.

The oth­er per­son who may have found him­self in a na­tion­al quag­mire and has chal­lenges with this Gov­ern­ment and how law en­force­ment op­er­a­tions ought to be done, is none oth­er than Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs. With­out, per­haps, a clear and care­ful­ly strate­gic plan, Gibbs' ac­tions con­tin­ue to be smoul­dered in the po­lit­i­cal tor­rents of the day. Lack­ing a thor­ough un­der­stand­ing of the po­lit­i­cal and pub­lic ser­vice cul­ture, Gibbs may have failed to as­sim­i­late a sound in­tro­spec­tion of the ail­ing fac­tors in the Po­lice Ser­vice.

Be­ing armed with such knowl­edge would have re­sult­ed in a con­cert­ed plan to bring restora­tion of pub­lic con­fi­dence, morale, and dis­ci­pline, in­creased train­ing and knowl­edge of hu­man rights, whilst grad­u­al­ly rup­tur­ing the lay­ers of al­leged cor­rup­tion at vary­ing lev­els. Not hav­ing been ini­tial­ly con­sult­ed by ei­ther the PM nor his line min­is­ter with re­gards to the im­po­si­tion of the state of emer­gency (SoE), Gibbs may not have read the "doos­ron­ics of Trinidad pol­i­tics," his con­fi­dence may have been shak­en in light of the threat on the PM's life that proved to be not so re­al, as well as the non-dis­clo­sure and ap­par­ent lack of ad­e­quate ten­der­ing and pro­cure­ment process­es over the light sur­veil­lance air­craft.

Now, the lat­est im­broglio in­volv­ing ACIB of­fi­cers and the News­day, the pop­u­la­tion is now wag­ing a war for his head. De­spite all his rhetoric and tough talk, promis­es, mas­ter plans, strate­gic ini­tia­tives, and re­gur­gi­ta­tion of rhetoric, Gibbs may not have long to prove his worth as CoP, if he con­tin­ues in this vein. Im­por­tant­ly, Gibbs must take in­to ac­count that the na­tion con­tin­ues to ex­pe­ri­ence the es­ca­lat­ing homi­cide rate with over 54 for the first six weeks of the year.

To­geth­er these two men ought to have a bet­ter grasp of what con­sti­tutes na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty giv­en their key func­tions. What then is the de­f­i­n­i­tion of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty? What is na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, how is it re­spon­si­ble to the cit­i­zen­ry, and what is its con­sti­tu­tion­al man­date?

The term 'na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty' has changed from the Cold War ap­proach of the ide­o­log­i­cal di­vide and threat of com­mu­nist ex­pan­sion and arms race, to one that ought to be viewed as the pro­tec­tion of the na­tion's vi­tal po­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests and in­sti­tu­tion­al safe­guards, and is a key com­po­nent and fa­cil­i­ta­tor of the na­tion's do­mes­tic and in­ter­na­tion­al in­ter­ests. The Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and its re­lat­ed agen­cies are con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly po­si­tioned to en­sure that "every­one is en­ti­tled to life, lib­er­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of the per­son, the pro­tec­tion of rights and free­doms and pro­vid­ing the sta­bil­i­ty and con­ti­nu­ity of gov­ern­ment in times of pub­lic emer­gency."

How­ev­er, Trinidad and To­ba­go's con­cept of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty to­day is in­fi­nite­ly more com­plex than at any time in its his­to­ry. Per­haps the same can be said of the re­la­tion­ship be­tween the for­eign and do­mes­tic com­po­nents of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. One is deal­ing here with vis­i­tors, im­mi­grants, busi­ness in­ter­ests and for­eign in­vestors to this coun­try, and trans-na­tion­al threats. There­fore, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is very im­por­tant, and these two gen­tle­men must re­alise that na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is evolv­ing in­to broad­er di­men­sions and must en­cap­su­late a dif­fer­ent pos­ture if they are to con­tribute mean­ing­ful­ly and ef­fec­tive­ly and to ac­count pub­licly.

Chal­lenges fac­ing polic­ing

In an a Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty newslet­ter, 2006, by Deb­o­rah A Benedit­ti and Nor­man Bai­ley and cap­tioned, "Trinidad and To­ba­go's Crime Cri­sis," these au­thors not­ed that "Trinidad and To­ba­go is plagued with drug traf­fick­ing, gang ac­tiv­i­ty, wide­spread avail­abil­i­ty of guns, kid­nap­ping and hu­man traf­fick­ing. One homi­cide a day oc­curs in this Caribbean na­tion. The na­tion is a haven for tran­ship­ment of drugs, and where some drugs and guns re­main, and this un­ten­able sit­u­a­tion is over­whelm­ing the ca­pac­i­ty of the Po­lice Ser­vice." The SoE aid­ed the process a lit­tle, but the mur­der rate is still too high.