Gail Alexan­der

The Gov­ern­ment is col­lab­o­rat­ing with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al agen­cies to go af­ter the "big­ger fish­es," Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has said. Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the point dur­ing Sun­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives de­bate on the ex­ten­sion of the state of emer­gency when she al­so warned those who want to con­tin­ue to re­main in crime: "We will take them out one way or the oth­er!" Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­mit­ted the Gov­ern­ment "could have done a bet­ter job" in com­mu­ni­cat­ing all as­pects of the state of emer­gency. "We did not do as well as we should have ini­tial­ly in pub­lic ed­u­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion. That has since been ad­just­ed. There are now bul­letins, print ads and posters as well as hot­lines, all pro­vid­ing nec­es­sary in­for­ma­tion," she added.

On crit­i­cisms that the Gov­ern­ment has on­ly nabbed "small fry," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Every mur­der­er, in my view, is a big fish. Every gang leader and gang mem­ber is a big fish. Every ban­dit who ter­roris­es in­no­cent cit­i­zens is by my de­f­i­n­i­tion a big fish...Yes, there are al­ways big­ger fish­es. "But gangs are ac­tive­ly in­volved in the drug trade at the high­est pos­si­ble lev­el and the lev­el of or­gan­i­sa­tion and so­phis­ti­ca­tion of the gangs leave me with no doubt, that they are big fish­es. "With­out them, there is no pos­si­bil­i­ty of trans­ship­ment and dis­tri­b­u­tion...to get to the head re­quires re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al co-op­er­a­tion and be re­as­sured, the Gov­ern­ment is ac­tive­ly col­lab­o­rat­ing and shar­ing in­tel­li­gence with in­ter­na­tion­al law en­force­ment agen­cies to catch the big­ger fish­es." On re­cent de­ten­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "I recog­nise it is hard to see some of our young men be­ing ar­rest­ed and tak­en away; it is hard for any moth­er or fa­ther or broth­er or sis­ter to en­dure this."

"So in that sense, one can­not just at­tempt to re­move the crim­i­nals with­out ac­knowl­edg­ing the need to cre­ate ini­tia­tives that will turn around the very cir­cum­stances that have be­come a spawn­ing ground for crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty." She added: "But I al­so un­der­stand that for some, the long arm of the law is our best course of ac­tion. "And for those bent on re­main­ing in a life of crim­i­nal­i­ty we will take them out in one way or the oth­er." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a choice for peo­ple, es­pe­cial­ly our youth, en­cour­ag­ing them to make some­thing of their lives, giv­ing them every op­por­tu­ni­ty to be­come some­one bet­ter but we're al­so equal­ly com­mit­ted to tak­ing the strongest ac­tion against those that refuse to fol­low that path and con­tribute to so­ci­ety." She added: "When I was elect­ed Prime Min­is­ter, I com­mit­ted my­self and my Gov­ern­ment to pro­tect cit­i­zens as our first pri­or­i­ty. That has not changed. We will not stop un­til our coun­try is safe again."

On the state of emer­gency, the PM said des­per­ate times re­quired rad­i­cal mea­sures. She added: "It was time to think out­side the box; it was time to send a clear and strong mes­sage to the crim­i­nals that change had come and it would not be busi­ness as usu­al." "A na­tion­al am­bush and frontal as­sault was nec­es­sary, pur­suant to an im­me­di­ate de­c­la­ra­tion of war...for far too long we've been han­dling the crime sit­u­a­tion with vel­vet gloves, afraid that any ac­tion we take will neg­a­tive­ly af­fect our in­ter­na­tion­al im­age.

"On Au­gust 21 the gloves came off. We're now deal­ing with crime the way crime has to be dealt with-with an iron fist and a steely re­solve." Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the emer­gency was di­rect­ly linked to and caused by the drug trade and up­surge in vi­o­lent crime. "Un­less we nipped this in the bud T&T could have fast be­come a brew­ing pot for ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties that not on­ly af­fect­ed our coun­try but oth­ers as well," she said.

She said re­cent drug busts not on­ly dis­rupt­ed the "smooth flow of busi­ness" in the sup­ply chain. "The en­tire sup­ply/ dis­tri­b­u­tion net­work, which utilise T&T as a trans-ship­ment point and cus­tomer base was al­so jolt­ed and weak­ened by the seizures. Planned re­tal­i­a­tion by gangs rep­re­sent­ed a clear and present dan­ger to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty and cit­i­zens," she added. Say­ing the cri­sis was avert­ed, the PM said the state of emer­gency caught crim­i­nals by sur­prise and had worked. Dis­miss­ing ac­cu­sa­tions that Afro Trinida­di­ans were tar­get­ed, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "A life lost is a life lost, re­gard­less of where the vic­tim lived or their racial ori­gin." "The Gov­ern­ment or any min­is­ter does not se­lect per­sons for ar­rest or de­ten­tion, we do not se­lect the ar­eas for search­es...this is the work of the Po­lice Ser­vice based on in­tel­li­gence."