Carisa Lee

Re­porter

carisa.lee@cnc3.co.tt

Trinidad and To­ba­go au­thor­i­ties are on high alert fol­low­ing a se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­so­ry is­sued by the Unit­ed States Em­bassy to its cit­i­zens, but Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der stressed there is no im­me­di­ate threat to cit­i­zens.

The ad­vi­so­ry, is­sued yes­ter­day, warned US cit­i­zens to avoid all gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go over the Di­vali hol­i­day week­end, cit­ing un­spec­i­fied threats. The Em­bassy urged Amer­i­cans to stay vig­i­lant, mon­i­tor cred­i­ble news sources, and re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty.

Thou­sands of pro­test­ers al­so ral­lied across the coun­try in ‘No Kings’ events op­pos­ing US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s ad­min­is­tra­tion, though Alexan­der said the ad­vi­so­ry ap­pears to be linked in­stead to ten­sions be­tween the US and Venezuela.

In re­cent mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions in the Caribbean, 27 peo­ple were killed in to­tal across mul­ti­ple strikes against drug-car­ry­ing ves­sels; two have been iden­ti­fied as T&T na­tion­als.

“No, the ad­vi­so­ry you saw is, in fact, af­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry, the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment would have re­ceived threats to the cit­i­zens and in­fra­struc­ture. So all they are do­ing they are tak­ing mea­sures, putting mea­sures in place to pro­tect their cit­i­zens and the in­fra­struc­ture,” Alexan­der said.

Yes­ter­day, Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Ju­nior Ben­jamin said there was no need to pan­ic as they are putting things in place as the in­tel­li­gence comes in, to en­sure that, one, what­ev­er the in­tel­li­gence is say­ing, that they have the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions to en­sure safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty.

He re­vealed that all tac­ti­cal teams and spe­cial­ist units, as well as mu­nic­i­pal po­lice, are on high alert to as­sist in se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

How­ev­er, no of­fi­cers have been called out from their leave.

“So, as I said, there’s ab­solute­ly no need for us to pan­ic, re­al­ly, or have any­thing to pan­ic about,” Ben­jamin reaf­firmed.

This was re­it­er­at­ed by the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, who as­sured the pub­lic that if the sit­u­a­tion changes, the pop­u­la­tion will be in­formed im­me­di­ate­ly.

“We, at this time, have no rea­son to do that just yet un­less we re­ceive ad­di­tion­al in­for­ma­tion with re­spect to the threat,” he said.

Alexan­der said he was sur­prised by so­cial-me­dia re­ports claim­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie and US of­fi­cials had been placed in safe hous­es for their pro­tec­tion. When ques­tioned by the me­dia fur­ther, he said he was not aware of this and em­pha­sised, “Every house is a safe house.”

Je­re­mie al­so de­clined to en­gage on most ques­tions but re­spond­ed when asked whether the alert was linked to the “No Kings” protests in the Unit­ed States—demon­stra­tions op­pos­ing Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s gov­ern­ment. His re­sponse was, “No.”

Asked whether the in­for­ma­tion was ac­cu­rate and for her views on the no­tice, Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar of­fered on­ly a brief re­sponse: “Please ask the US. It is their no­tice.”

Guardian Me­dia has con­firmed that work­ers at the US Em­bassy con­struc­tion site in Mar­aval were sent home “un­til fur­ther no­tice”.

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo is cur­rent­ly abroad, with Wade Mark serv­ing as Act­ing Pres­i­dent.

De­fence Force sources said per­son­nel have been told to pre­pare to shift from aid-to-the-civ­il-pow­er op­er­a­tions to de­fen­sive and bor­der-se­cu­ri­ty roles by year-end, in an­tic­i­pa­tion of pos­si­ble refugee flows if the con­flict in Venezuela wors­ens.

PNM slams Govt si­lence

The PM’s lim­it­ed com­ment drew crit­i­cism from for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had “been in hid­ing for days now and not ad­dress­ing the grow­ing con­cerns of un­cer­tain­ty”.

Young added, “It is the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ad­dress the na­tion im­me­di­ate­ly and pro­vide the pop­u­la­tion with in­for­ma­tion and re­as­sur­ance. Do your job, Madame Prime Min­is­ter.”

Mean­while, the Op­po­si­tion is con­demn­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s si­lence on the lat­est US ad­vi­so­ry.

Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Colm Im­bert said at the par­ty’s press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day that the pop­u­la­tion was wor­ried by the “ru­mours and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries” and called on the Gov­ern­ment to ex­plain what was hap­pen­ing. He said he re­ceived sev­er­al mes­sages from his con­stituents and even fam­i­ly, but told the me­dia, “Don’t ask us. We don’t know.”

PNM Chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so called on the Prime Min­is­ter to up­date the pop­u­la­tion ful­ly. He said that last week he took is­sue with the fact that Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro and a deputy trav­elled out of the ju­ris­dic­tion at this time.

“In the midst of a State of Emer­gency, in the midst of a mur­der spike, in­sta­bil­i­ty tak­ing place in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Reg­i­ment, in the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force,” he said.

PNM ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber Symon De No­bri­ga echoed his col­league’s sen­ti­ments. He said ru­mours and con­spir­a­cy the­o­ries were run­ning ram­pant, and a re­spon­si­ble gov­ern­ment would have en­sured it was in front of the sit­u­a­tion im­me­di­ate­ly.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les al­so strong­ly con­demned the con­tin­ued ab­sence and si­lence of Per­sad-Bisses­sar on what she de­scribed as crit­i­cal na­tion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al mat­ters of ur­gent im­por­tance.

Beck­les called on the Prime Min­is­ter to ad­dress the na­tion on the state of the econ­o­my, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, and the coun­try’s re­gion­al po­si­tion.

In a me­dia re­lease, Beck­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has re­fused to an­swer ques­tions on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, in­stead “shame­ful­ly” redi­rect­ing the me­dia to the Unit­ed States for com­ment.

She said the Prime Min­is­ter has al­so al­lowed T&T to stand alone in Cari­com by “re­serv­ing its po­si­tion” on the re­gion’s col­lec­tive state­ment on peace, sov­er­eign­ty, and ter­ri­to­r­i­al in­tegri­ty.

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter’s ab­sence from na­tion­al dis­course amounts to a dere­lic­tion of du­ty and a dis­grace to the high of­fice she holds. She added that the peo­ple of T&T de­serve hon­esty, trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, and lead­er­ship with vi­sion and courage.

The Op­po­si­tion al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for fail­ing to ad­dress what it de­scribed as glar­ing eco­nom­ic con­tra­dic­tions ex­posed dur­ing the bud­get de­bate, cit­ing no clear plans for en­er­gy, youth, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, or eco­nom­ic growth.

Beck­les said the coun­try was left with­out an­swers, as min­is­ters of­fered on­ly “emp­ty slo­gans and ex­cus­es,” con­firm­ing that the ad­min­is­tra­tion “gov­erns by po­lit­i­cal op­tics, not na­tion­al vi­sion”.

US alert not a sign T&T is un­der threat–Ra­goonath

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath shared a sim­i­lar view to the Prime Min­is­ter, who told the me­dia to di­rect ques­tions to the Unit­ed States. He said their in­tel­li­gence prob­a­bly in­di­cat­ed that T&T was not un­der at­tack, as the no­tice specif­i­cal­ly ad­vised their peo­ple to stay away from US in­stal­la­tions.

Ra­goonath be­lieves that if it were a broad­er threat to T&T, the US would have is­sued a dif­fer­ent type of ad­vi­so­ry. He not­ed that this is not the first time Amer­i­ca has is­sued such no­tices telling its cit­i­zens which ar­eas of the coun­try to avoid.

“And that was not about Amer­i­can in­stal­la­tions per se, that was ge­o­graph­i­cal spaces in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he ex­plained.

The po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist added that if the US con­tin­ues to blow ves­sels out of the wa­ter, there may be reper­cus­sions, though not nec­es­sar­i­ly tar­get­ing lo­cals.

It’s part of Trump’ agen­da to stoke fear—Prof Knight

In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions ex­pert Prof Andy Knight de­scribed the ad­vi­so­ry as “a bit overblown”. He linked it to the “No Kings” ral­lies across Amer­i­ca, which he said are peace­ful protests against a gov­ern­ment run amok.

Knight said hav­ing a height­ened state of alert post­ed in T&T is “re­al­ly mind-bog­gling”.

“I don’t think Amer­i­cans have any­thing to fear in Trinidad. This is sim­ply part of the Trump agen­da to stoke fear and give the im­pres­sion of a cri­sis that needs to be re­solved, so that it can use what­ev­er means avail­able to claim to be re­solv­ing this made-up cri­sis. It’s bizarre,” he said.

The pro­fes­sor added that any­one ob­serv­ing “Trump 2.0” would eas­i­ly recog­nise the tac­tic and the “stu­pid­i­ty be­hind it”.