Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ques­tioned whether Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro is act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly, al­leg­ing that Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was be­hind the cre­ation of 15 new no-protest zones be­cause her Gov­ern­ment is fear­ful of grow­ing pub­lic op­po­si­tion.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in Arou­ca on Thurs­day night, Beck­les sug­gest­ed the Prime Min­is­ter had pri­or knowl­edge of the re­stric­tions be­fore they were pub­licly ex­plained by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS), rais­ing con­cerns about who was tru­ly re­spon­si­ble for the de­ci­sion.

“Is the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly?” Beck­les asked sup­port­ers.

She ar­gued that if the Prime Min­is­ter had ac­cess to the le­gal no­tice be­fore the po­lice pub­licly dis­cussed it, then the de­ci­sion was not be­ing dri­ven by the TTPS.

“Be­cause if it is that the prime min­is­ter had ac­cess to this no­tice be­fore the po­lice was able to come and dis­cuss it with the pub­lic, then you know who re­al­ly in charge. Is not the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice,” Beck­les said.

Her com­ments came amid con­tro­ver­sy over a le­gal no­tice signed by Gue­var­ro on May 27 cre­at­ing 15 re­strict­ed ar­eas where pro­test­ers must re­main at least 500 me­tres away from lo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­istries and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

The or­der was signed on the same day po­lice moved against demon­stra­tors gath­ered near the DPP’s of­fice in Port-of-Spain dur­ing protests linked to the Joshua Sama­roo/Ka­ia Sealy case.

How­ev­er, the sched­ule was on­ly pub­licly re­leased the fol­low­ing day, prompt­ing crit­i­cism from op­po­nents who claim it was rushed in­to ef­fect to sti­fle pub­lic demon­stra­tions.

Ques­tion­ing the se­quence of events, Beck­les told sup­port­ers: “Yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) was the protest, and you all see what hap­pened. And to­day (Thurs­day), the po­lice is now hav­ing a press con­fer­ence to ex­plain about it. You don’t find that kind of strange?”

She fur­ther chal­lenged the lev­el of ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the po­lice ser­vice, ask­ing, “So who re­al­ly guard­ing the guards? Who is guard­ing the guards?”

Beck­les ar­gued that the re­stric­tions rep­re­sent­ed an un­prece­dent­ed lim­i­ta­tion on cit­i­zens’ abil­i­ty to demon­strate near in­sti­tu­tions of po­lit­i­cal pow­er, not­ing that march­es out­side Par­lia­ment and oth­er gov­ern­ment build­ings have long been part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic tra­di­tion.

“It has be­come cus­tom­ary for peo­ple to do the lit­tle march­ing by the Red House,” she said, adding that trade unions have al­so his­tor­i­cal­ly demon­strat­ed out­side the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre and oth­er of­fi­cial lo­ca­tions.

She took par­tic­u­lar is­sue with Par­lia­ment be­ing in­clud­ed on the re­strict­ed list.

“Here are the ar­eas you can­not protest. The Par­lia­ment. The Par­lia­ment. The nor­mal thing where you could walk, you can’t go by the Par­lia­ment. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent,” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader sug­gest­ed the move re­flect­ed a Gov­ern­ment in­creas­ing­ly wor­ried about pub­lic crit­i­cism.

“This Gov­ern­ment like they afraid of every­body?” she asked.

Re­fer­ring to Wednes­day’s demon­stra­tion out­side the DPP’s of­fice, Beck­les added, “A lit­tle protest yes­ter­day. And po­lice come out like rain.”

She ar­gued that the re­stric­tions ef­fec­tive­ly shut cit­i­zens out of the coun­try’s most vis­i­ble cen­tres of pow­er.

“Be­cause what they re­al­ly telling you. Do not go back by the po­lice sta­tion. Don’t go by the par­lia­ment. Don’t go by the pres­i­dent. Don’t go by the prime min­is­ter. Don’t go nowhere,” she said.

Beck­les al­so linked the is­sue to the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­pect­ed move to seek an ex­ten­sion of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency when Par­lia­ment re­con­venes.

“And come two weeks, we will be back in the par­lia­ment for the ex­ten­sion of a State of Emer­gency,” she said.

Warn­ing of what she de­scribed as a broad­er ero­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties, Beck­les told sup­port­ers the re­stric­tions sent a trou­bling mes­sage to the pub­lic.

“Be­cause this Gov­ern­ment is now say­ing to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, you re­al­ly have no free­dom,” she said.

She end­ed by urg­ing sup­port­ers to pay close at­ten­tion to what she char­ac­terised as a “Gov­ern­ment run­ning scared of pub­lic scruti­ny” and in­creas­ing­ly re­ly­ing on po­lice pow­ers to man­age dis­sent.