Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says mech­a­nisms will be put in place to pro­tect cit­i­zens from abuse by sol­diers who may be giv­en the same pow­ers as po­lice.Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the com­ment yes­ter­day as she de­fend­ed the Gov­ern­ment's pro­posed amend­ment to the De­fence Act at the open­ing of the $2.5 mil­lion Na­tion­al En­er­gy Skills Cen­tre Debe Cam­pus at SS Erin Road, Debe.

She said sol­diers op­er­at­ing un­der the amend­ment "will not be op­er­at­ing as a po­lice force un­to them­selves, on their own. They will be work­ing along­side po­lice of­fi­cers."The amend­ment, which will be de­bat­ed in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, seeks to give sol­diers the same pow­ers as po­lice of­fi­cers. The Op­po­si­tion PNM said yes­ter­day it would not sup­port the move.

On Mon­day, for­mer min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sub­has Pan­day, an at­tor­ney, de­scribed the amend­ment as "dan­ger­ous." He said it was flawed, since there were no checks and bal­ances to guard against abuse by sol­diers.Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Per­sad-Bisses­sar dis­missed his state­ment, say­ing checks and bal­ances would be im­ple­ment­ed for the ap­pli­ca­tion of the amend­ment.

"I think the crim­i­nals are far more dan­ger­ous than any piece of leg­is­la­tion," she said."We are in a sit­u­a­tion where there is an up­surge, es­pe­cial­ly in mur­ders, and this one way of util­is­ing per­sons who are in the em­ploy of the State, whether as po­lice of­fi­cers or de­fence of­fi­cers."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion would be used in tan­dem with an amend­ment to the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty Act.She said through this amend­ment, sol­diers who act­ed along­side po­lice and had the same du­ties as the po­lice would fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty.The Prime Min­is­ter added that such mech­a­nisms would take care of con­cerns and "will al­so al­low for a ramp­ing-up of our per­son­nel in the very, very im­por­tant and most need­ed fight against crime."

She ex­plained that while the De­fence Act made pro­vi­sion for sol­diers to work along­side po­lice, it did not state that when they were work­ing to­geth­er they would have the same pow­ers. The amend­ment, she said, would give sol­diers pow­ers such as the pow­er of ar­rest.