Joshua Seemu­n­gal

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

joshua.seemu­n­gal@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship min­is­ter and cur­rent Con­gress of the Peo­ple Po­lit­i­cal Leader Prakash Ra­mad­har says De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge’s claim, in Par­lia­ment on Fri­day, that au­thor­i­ties failed to act de­ci­sive­ly on in­tel­li­gence in 2014 that could have saved Dana See­ta­hal’s life was fur­ther ev­i­dence of the coun­try’s need for in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion.

“That proves the point. We need in­ter­na­tion­al eyes on those who are giv­en the du­ty and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect us. So if what Mr Sturge said was shock­ing, what does that mean for us?

“If you had in­tel­li­gence, let the coun­try see that the use of that should have pre­vent­ed Dana See­ta­hal’s mur­der, and the per­sons who were con­spir­ing should have been charged for mur­der. Not wait for an event,” he said dur­ing a press con­fer­ence at COP’s Curepe Of­fice yes­ter­day morn­ing.

Dur­ing the de­bate on a mo­tion to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency, Sturge, who is al­so the MP for To­co/San­gre Grande, said, “Dana See­ta­hal al­so knew she was go­ing to get killed. They lis­tened, and they lis­tened, and they lis­tened, and now she’s not here.”

Op­po­si­tion MP for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West Stu­art Young im­me­di­ate­ly ob­ject­ed, telling the cham­ber that See­ta­hal was mur­dered in 2014 while the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship was in gov­ern­ment and cau­tion­ing against sug­ges­tions that min­is­ters had ac­cess to in­ter­cept­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

Mean­while, Ra­mad­har said he sup­port­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to ex­tend the SoE by an­oth­er three months.

He said he sup­ports any Gov­ern­ment ac­tion tak­en to strength­en law en­force­ment and, in turn, en­sure im­proved safe­ty for cit­i­zens.

Ra­mad­har said the coun­try has al­ready es­sen­tial­ly been in a state of emer­gency for years, as there is a per­pet­u­al en­vi­ron­ment of fear.

“If we do not fix these things, we will reach a po­si­tion soon where the en­tire so­ci­ety is so afraid of every­thing that we be­come dom­i­nat­ed by the dark­ness of the night. The State of Emer­gency was nec­es­sary, in my view, be­cause we can­not con­tin­ue to play by old rules in the new game. The new crim­i­nal and the new en­ti­ties to­day do not op­er­ate on the ba­sis of re­spect for law and or­der,” he said.

Ra­mad­har said he would al­so sup­port the re­turn of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill.

He urged both sides of Par­lia­ment to put par­ty pol­i­tics aside and work for the ben­e­fit of the coun­try.

“Bring it back. Lis­ten to who­ev­er has ideas be­cause no­body is per­fect, as I re­peat. But when you work to­geth­er, you get bet­ter an­swers. If they bring it back, all for it,” he said.

Ra­mad­har al­so viewed na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States gov­ern­ment favourably.

He claimed that cit­i­zens have been left fear­ful of not just the crim­i­nal el­e­ment, but al­so law en­force­ment.

He said, giv­en the lack of trust in State in­sti­tu­tions, in­ter­na­tion­al sup­port is wel­comed, as bold and ef­fec­tive ac­tion is need­ed.

Dur­ing her re­cent trip to the Unit­ed States, where she met with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar signed on­to a US gov­ern­ment-led Amer­i­c­as Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion.

Deny­ing claims that the agree­ment could com­pro­mise the coun­try’s sov­er­eign­ty, she said the coali­tion would pro­vide stronger in­tel­li­gence shar­ing among re­gion­al part­ners, en­hance mar­itime and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, and as­sist in the fight against il­le­gal firearm im­ports.