DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tors Faris Al-Rawi and Dr Mar­garet Rose have raised con­cerns about the Prime Min­is­ter’s sug­ges­tion that spe­cial op­er­a­tions could be con­cen­trat­ed in ar­eas con­trolled by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), warn­ing that the pow­ers un­der the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion must not be ap­plied ac­cord­ing to po­lit­i­cal af­fil­i­a­tion.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Al-Rawi de­fend­ed the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) crit­i­cism of the Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment, de­scrib­ing it as one of the most ir­re­spon­si­ble ad­mis­sions about how the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill could be used.

He said se­lec­tive use of the leg­is­la­tion could re­sult in crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty be­ing con­cen­trat­ed in PNM-rep­re­sent­ed ar­eas.

He added that the Prime Min­is­ter’s state­ment al­so sug­gest­ed that de­ci­sions over where the pow­ers would be de­ployed ul­ti­mate­ly rest­ed with the Prime Min­is­ter and Cab­i­net, rather than the Pres­i­dent as set out in the Bill.

“No law can be sin­gu­lar in pur­pose. If it is de­signed to a cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple, it’s called ad hominem, mean­ing it’s di­rect­ed to­wards peo­ple. So, that is the most ir­re­spon­si­ble state­ment one could make in law. It means that you’re tar­get­ing a law to a cat­e­go­ry of per­sons. The sec­ond as­pect of it is that the con­se­quence of that has been that the Prime Min­is­ter has made a huge ad­mis­sion... The Prime Min­is­ter un­wit­ting­ly said, ‘I will in­struct no spe­cial op­er­a­tions in PNM con­stituen­cies,’ there­by ad­mit­ting ex­act­ly what we said was the prob­lem.”

Al-Rawi was al­so chal­lenged on the PNM’s de­ci­sion to re­ject the leg­is­la­tion in Par­lia­ment while crit­i­cis­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for say­ing it would not be used in PNM-held ar­eas.

How­ev­er, he said the two po­si­tions were not con­tra­dic­to­ry.

“When we say that the Prime Min­is­ter’s sec­ond state­ment is ridicu­lous, it’s a sep­a­rate is­sue. The sep­a­rate is­sue is that it is ridicu­lous be­cause you can­not now say that you’re mak­ing a law, for­get this law, for the ben­e­fit of on­ly one cat­e­go­ry of peo­ple who sup­port politi­cians. That is an equal­ly ridicu­lous sub­mis­sion. So don’t get con­fused in the lev­els of stu­pid­i­ty. I’ll use a tech­ni­cal term. It’s just plain­ly dotish,” he said.

Rose, mean­while, ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of plan­ning to use the leg­is­la­tion to ap­ply ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers dif­fer­ent­ly across the coun­try.

She said the con­cern was height­ened by the fact that the leg­is­la­tion does not iden­ti­fy spe­cif­ic ar­eas that would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly be des­ig­nat­ed as closed zones.

Rose ar­gued that leav­ing the de­ci­sion over when and where closed zones are de­clared to the au­thor­i­ties could re­sult in dif­fer­ent treat­ment for dif­fer­ent com­mu­ni­ties.

“We, the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, have to open our eyes on what we are fac­ing here to­day in this coun­try. We have to open our eyes. These ex­tra­or­di­nary pow­ers be­ing placed in the hands of per­sons who have no shame in go­ing to the pub­lic and say­ing we’re go­ing to treat our con­stituents dif­fer­ent­ly from oth­er con­stituents. We can­not ac­cept that,” she said.

In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor con­demns PM’s ‘vit­ri­ol’

Mean­while, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Michael De La Bastide is warn­ing that the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill could be used for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es rather than sole­ly to com­bat crime.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, De La Bastide said the Bill does not dis­tin­guish be­tween UNC and PNM ar­eas when set­ting out the cir­cum­stances un­der which an area can be de­clared closed.

“If you’re go­ing to use the Bill, the pow­er in that way, for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es, then it’s dan­ger­ous ter­ri­to­ry be­cause then there may be oth­er po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es you want to use it for. And these are very in­tru­sive pow­ers—putting peo­ple un­der cur­few and this kind of thing. So, I found that very dis­turb­ing. I don’t know if she said it in a kind of off-hand way. Be­cause I was sur­prised by the state­ment. I know things get heat­ed in the House some­times and maybe she said it as an off-the-cuff re­mark. But, it’s dis­turb­ing,” De La Bastide said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent re­marks about In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sat­ur­day de­scribed the sen­a­tors as “dead­beats” dri­ven by “scum­my per­son­al am­bi­tions” af­ter be­ing asked whether she would iden­ti­fy two sen­a­tors she said had sought favours.

De La Bastide de­scribed the re­marks as vit­ri­ol and ques­tioned why de­bate over the leg­is­la­tion had to de­scend in­to per­son­al at­tacks.

On Sun­day, Guardian Me­dia reached out to eight of the nine in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for their re­sponse to the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­marks.

None agreed to be iden­ti­fied.

Those who re­spond­ed said they were not sur­prised by the re­marks and said they would re­main fo­cused on the work for which they were ap­point­ed.