An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says the de­ci­sion to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency (SoE) for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive three-month pe­ri­od was based on the con­tents of a clas­si­fied re­port he sub­mit­ted to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC). He is al­so dis­miss­ing any no­tion that the ex­ten­sion is re­lat­ed to ten­sions be­tween this coun­try and Venezuela.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day on the ra­tio­nale be­hind the con­tin­u­a­tion of the SoE, the CoP stressed that the rec­om­men­da­tion did not come from him, but ad­mit­ted, “I sub­mit­ted a clas­si­fied re­port to the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, which in­clud­ed op­er­a­tional as­sess­ments and rec­om­men­da­tions.”

Gue­var­ro added, “The de­ci­sion to ex­tend the State of Emer­gency falls square­ly with­in the re­mit of Par­lia­ment. It is not with­in the au­thor­i­ty of the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice or the TTPS to de­ter­mine its du­ra­tion.”

Gue­var­ro, how­ev­er, re­fused to di­vulge the con­tents of the re­port.

The SoE, which was due to end yes­ter­day, was ini­tial­ly an­nounced on Ju­ly 18 for a pe­ri­od of 15 days; and was ex­tend­ed for three months there­after from Ju­ly 28 in Par­lia­ment.

The de­ci­sion at the time was based on the al­leged for­ma­tion of a crim­i­nal syn­di­cate op­er­at­ing from be­hind T&T’s prison walls, which of­fi­cials claimed had been in­tent on killing se­nior gov­ern­ment and oth­er state of­fi­cials.

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view on Crime Watch on Mon­day, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in­di­cat­ed that the mo­tion re­lat­ing to the SoE ex­ten­sion had been placed on the Par­lia­men­tary Or­der Pa­per for de­bate on Fri­day.

Asked yes­ter­day, say if the con­tin­u­a­tion of the SoE could be linked to the strained geopo­lit­i­cal re­la­tions be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela, Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro de­clined to re­spond.

“My role is to pro­tect and serve the peo­ple of T&T, not Cara­cas,” he said.

“The TTPS’ rec­om­men­da­tions are based on the pre­vi­ous pe­ri­od of the SoE, threat eval­u­a­tions, ex­ist­ing in­tel­li­gence, and oth­er key ar­eas.”

Gue­var­ro warned cit­i­zens against en­gag­ing in spec­u­la­tion link­ing the SoE ex­ten­sion to un­fold­ing ex­ter­nal af­fairs, which may be used as a smoke­screen to de­tract from the se­ri­ous­ness of their in­ter­nal se­cu­ri­ty ef­forts.

Mean­while, the Com­mis­sion­er as­sured, “The ini­tial threat that prompt­ed the SoE was ad­dressed de­ci­sive­ly.”

He not­ed, “Crim­i­nal net­works are adap­tive. When lead­er­ship struc­tures are dis­rupt­ed, oth­ers at­tempt to fill the void.”

He ex­plained that their “dis­rup­tion phase was suc­cess­ful,” but more is need­ed as “the sub­se­quent dis­man­tling phase re­quires sus­tained pre­ci­sion.”

Gue­var­ro said as a re­sult of the un­re­lent­ing ef­forts by of­fi­cers, “sev­er­al in­di­vid­u­als have gone in­to hid­ing and we are ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing them through in­tel­li­gence-led op­er­a­tions.”

“The sit­u­a­tion is dy­nam­ic and while sig­nif­i­cant progress has been made, our work con­tin­ues to en­sure long-term sta­bil­i­ty,” Gue­var­ro said.