Richard Ra­moutar

On be­half of all its read­ers, this col­umn wants to wish the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and all na­tion­als af­fect­ed by dengue fever, speedy re­cov­ery and re­cu­per­a­tion. In a sim­i­lar vein, this col­umn of­fers sin­cere con­do­lences to all the chil­dren, moth­ers and fa­thers af­fect­ed by the un­time­ly loss of their loved ones due to the con­tin­ued spate of or­gan­ised ban­dit­ry and sense­less killings, ren­der­ing mute the high­ly of­fi­cial rhetor­i­cal speech­es of crime re­duc­tion and con­trol.

As the ho­n­ourable PM rests, re­flects and re­cu­per­ates, it may be po­lit­i­cal­ly pru­dent and ap­pro­pri­ate for her to se­ri­ous­ly pon­der whether that na­tion­al bank of pub­lic good­will giv­en to her with paid in­ter­est on May 24, 2010, with the ex­press aim of adopt­ing a re­al­is­tic course of mean­ing­ful and ef­fec­tive change in gov­er­nance, demon­strat­ing full trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty has sat­is­fied the bur­den of proof and ad­e­quate­ly in­spired the pub­lic's le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tions of what is meant by the term "change"? Two of the ap­par­ent dis­tinct and emerg­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics of her ad­min­is­tra­tion in­clude the sub­tle and se­lec­tive dis­crim­i­na­to­ry em­ploy­ment prac­tices based on po­lit­i­cal al­le­giance al­leged­ly prac­ticed by some of her lead­ing of­fi­cials-quite con­trary to the Con­sti­tu­tion and equal op­por­tu­ni­ties prac­tices-and the spo­radic out­bursts from some of her ad­vi­sors.

They clear­ly need "mouth ton­ic" with ill-timed com­mu­niqu&ea­cute;s de­void of care­ful re­flec­tion and analy­sis, re­flect­ing more stilts of self ex­al­ta­tion, and per­haps lack of train­ing, ma­tu­ri­ty, sen­si­tiv­i­ty in pub­lic diplo­ma­cy, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, dis­pute res­o­lu­tion and con­flict me­di­a­tion skills. In hind­sight, what may cre­ate con­cerns in the pub­lic do­main is per­haps the scope, weight, and sub­stance of prime min­is­te­r­i­al de­ci­sions in the se­lec­tion of those who ought to ad­vise her with clin­i­cal po­lit­i­cal pre­ci­sion.

TOC car­tels and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty

The con­tin­u­ing saga of transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ties re­flects the lethar­gic in­abil­i­ty to har­ness a com­bined in­tel­li­gence strat­e­gy, proac­tive and in­ci­sive de­ci­sion mak­ing process­es, rup­tur­ing the hy­brid na­ture of mon­e­tary bless­ings and or­gan­ised crime in this coun­try. It is an es­tab­lished fact that transna­tion­al crim­i­nal or­gan­i­sa­tions threat­en the le­git­i­ma­cy and pow­er of gov­ern­ments and cre­ate may­hem with vi­o­lence and crime, as well as threat­en­ing re­gion­al sta­bil­i­ty. Fur­ther­more, they com­pete with each oth­er for mar­kets, in­flu­ence and ter­ri­to­ry. Recog­nis­ing these fac­tors brings me to an­oth­er ques­tion, whose in­ter­ests are pro­tect­ed by the or­gans of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty?

As this col­umn as­sess­es the im­pact of its un­pub­li­cised na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty strate­gies, one must al­so in­evitably ask: "To what ex­tent has the ideas, ide­olo­gies, strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty think­ing, and cu­mu­la­tive ex­pe­ri­ence of the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs and the In­tel­li­gence Agen­cies im­ple­ment­ed from May 24 to present brought about a more se­cure and sta­ble en­vi­ron­ment to fos­ter our na­tion­al and in­ter­ests?"

For the past year, the ho­n­ourable Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty John Sandy, though well-in­ten­tioned, has not been able to arouse the psy­che of na­tion­al in­ter­est and in­spire re­newed con­fi­dence, whilst Com­mis­sion­er Gibbs ap­pears at this stage to be both an "in­tern" and "ap­pren­tice" us­ing the tools of a diplo­mat-politi­cian. What al­so, is the role and func­tion of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor (NSA) to the Prime Min­is­ter? How ef­fec­tive has been both the lo­cal in­tel­li­gence agency and IM­PACS. Has IM­PACS cre­at­ed any im­pact on Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime (TOC)?

As chair­man of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, (NSC), the ho­n­ourable PM must know what has been the dom­i­nant area of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty doc­trine and think­ing fol­low­ing May 24, 2010. Since that time, what has been im­ple­ment­ed with mean­ing­ful ef­fect so that the na­tion can be con­fi­dent, and where­by in­ter­na­tion­al in­vestors can be very re­as­sured? Hav­ing ad­vis­ers may be good, but what about the qual­i­ty of ad­vice as it re­lates to our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­ter­ests? Let it be un­der­stood that in Trinidad and To­ba­go, na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues such as il­le­gal drugs and guns are avail­able on every street cor­ner, so that when min­is­te­r­i­al state­ments em­anate us­ing the cloak of "it is a mat­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty," it be­comes high­ly laugh­able.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor to PM

The po­si­tion of a Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty ad­vi­sor is a very se­ri­ous one, and gen­er­al­ly re­quires a ma­ture, knowl­edge­able, diplo­mat­ic and well-round­ed in­di­vid­ual versed in the in­ter­na­tion­al and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty are­na. In the his­to­ry of our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, a rather com­part­men­talised and lim­it­ed at­ti­tude to­wards na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­sult­ed in our bor­der in­fra­struc­ture not be­ing ad­e­quate­ly de­vel­oped and our in­tel­li­gence gath­er­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ties de­fi­cient for years. The NSA nor­mal­ly will have to gath­er in­tel­li­gence as­sess­ments pre­sent­ed week­ly to the NSC and fol­low up the is­sues aris­ing out of them, with rel­e­vant min­istries, and re­port the ac­tion tak­en to the Prime Min­is­ter and NSC.

While the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter and the Cab­i­net min­is­ters in the NSC are ex­pect­ed to be pol­i­cy in­no­va­tors, the NSA, as the of­fi­cial clos­est to the PM, ought to be able to guide her on ideas and poli­cies. The NSA must be able to pre­pare the agen­da for long-term plan­ning and ap­proval in dif­fer­ent ar­eas of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and sub­mit it to the min­istry con­cerned for nec­es­sary ac­tion and re­port. The NSA is al­so the eyes and ears of the ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter on na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and strate­gic pol­i­cy, and such a per­son is cru­cial if the PM is to ef­fec­tive­ly dis­charge her re­spon­si­bil­i­ty as the man­ag­er of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and strate­gic in­ter­ests. Gen­er­al­ly, such an NSA will be a low-key per­son­al­i­ty, rarely ap­pear­ing on na­tion­al tele­vi­sion and in the me­dia.

(Part two will be con­tin­ued next week.)