DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has raised con­cerns over com­ments by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro sup­port­ing a US op­er­a­tion in the South­ern Caribbean that tar­get­ed a Venezue­lan ves­sel.

The strike, which the White House said was car­ry­ing drugs, re­sult­ed in the deaths of 11 al­leged mem­bers of the Tren de Aragua gang.

On Wednes­day, Gue­var­ro praised the op­er­a­tion, say­ing, “I am grate­ful for the de­ci­sive US in­ter­ven­tion. The re­sources de­ployed will un­doubt­ed­ly place a sig­nif­i­cant dent in nar­cotics traf­fick­ing across the South­ern Caribbean. Let this serve as a clear warn­ing to our fish­ers of for­tune who board their pirogues chas­ing per­ilous tides of prof­it.”

He added that the “wa­ters have changed,” ad­vis­ing those at sea to fo­cus on catch­ing fish to feed the na­tion rather than act­ing as “drug smug­glers mas­querad­ing as fish­er­men.” Gue­var­ro al­so warned that when the US in­ter­venes, those in­volved in il­le­gal ac­tiv­i­ties should ex­pect “what will not be a hap­py end­ing,” adding he has “ab­solute­ly no pity” for of­fend­ers.

How­ev­er, Beck­les yes­ter­day stressed the im­por­tance of due process. While she ac­knowl­edged that nei­ther she nor the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) con­dones nar­co-traf­fick­ing, she said the com­mis­sion­er must clar­i­fy whether he up­holds lo­cal le­gal pro­ce­dures, es­pe­cial­ly amid the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency.

“The top cop has said that as it re­lates to ex­tra­ju­di­cial killings, but I hope he main­tains the po­si­tion that Trinidad and To­ba­go has al­ways sub­scribed to the rule of law. And if you sub­scribe to the rule of law, you un­der­stand as a coun­try there is pro­ce­dure, there is process, and we don’t want to give the im­pres­sion any­where in the world that as far as we’re con­cerned, once you see this (drug traf­fick­ing), you just kill and don’t care,” Beck­les said.

In an im­me­di­ate re­sponse, Gue­var­ro re­ject­ed claims that the US strike con­sti­tut­ed an ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing.

“It is un­for­tu­nate and frankly trou­bling that some have rushed to la­bel a com­plex in­ter­na­tion­al en­gage­ment as an ex­tra­ju­di­cial killing based on a 12-sec­ond video clip. That clip does not show the ini­tial en­gage­ment. It does not cap­ture any law­ful or­ders to stop. It does not show any re­tal­ia­to­ry ac­tion tak­en by those in­di­vid­u­als aboard the ves­sel pri­or to the ac­tion be­ing tak­en by the US mil­i­tary,” he said.

“What it does show is the end re­sult of an en­counter, which by all rea­son­able in­fer­ence was shaped by the ac­tions of those in­di­vid­u­als aboard that ves­sel. And that was not shown in that 12-sec­ond video clip.”

He in­sist­ed that nei­ther he nor the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) en­dors­es ex­tra­ju­di­cial ac­tion, call­ing such sug­ges­tions “false and dan­ger­ous.” He stressed that sup­port for in­ter­na­tion­al op­er­a­tions stems from the need to com­bat transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works—but “must nev­er come at the ex­pense of le­gal­i­ty.”

“Look be­fore you leap and stop mak­ing un­in­formed state­ments with­out know­ing the en­tire facts. Let your de­bate be ground­ed in facts and not in­flam­ma­to­ry mis­char­ac­ter­i­sa­tions.

“When you speak with­out the full sto­ry, you are not in­form­ing, you are per­form­ing. And the stage you have cho­sen to per­form on is built on spec­u­la­tion and not sub­stance,” he said in di­rect re­sponse to Beck­les.

“Any sug­ges­tion that I or the TTPS en­dorse ex­tra­ju­di­cial ac­tion is not on­ly false, but it is dan­ger­ous. It un­der­mines the very le­gal frame­work that pro­tects our cit­i­zens and holds us ac­count­able.”

Mean­while, Beck­les al­so crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who had urged the US to “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly,” re­mind­ing that T&T is bound by in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights treaties. She warned that un­crit­i­cal align­ment with the US could alien­ate Cari­com and urged the PM to clar­i­fy the ex­tent of co­op­er­a­tion with US forces in the South­ern Caribbean.

“To eas­i­ly say that you just agree with them with a vi­o­lent ap­proach … you have to think about that even in terms of stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion. And you have to think about it in terms of what is the sig­nal that you send to the pop­u­la­tion—that wher­ev­er you just go, you go head on and you don’t care about the fact that there are laws in place for every sin­gle thing that you do,” Beck­les said.

The Prime Min­is­ter did not re­spond to re­quests for com­ment yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, Cou­va South MP Bar­ry Padarath de­fend­ed her po­si­tion, cit­ing the in­fil­tra­tion of car­tels in­to T&T and the es­ca­la­tion of vi­o­lence un­der the PNM ad­min­is­tra­tions.

“Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has at­tacked Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s strong stance on crime, de­scrib­ing her mes­sage that the Unit­ed States should ‘kill them all vi­o­lent­ly’ as ‘reck­less and dis­grace­ful’. But one must ask: where was her voice when the tru­ly reck­less and dis­grace­ful killings were tak­ing place un­der her own PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion? Where was her out­rage when our broth­ers and sis­ters were be­ing vi­o­lent­ly mur­dered year af­ter year, while she sat silent­ly in Cab­i­net and as a se­nior mem­ber of her par­ty?”

Padarath not­ed that be­tween 2018 and 2021, 1,898 mur­ders were record­ed un­der the PNM gov­ern­ment, fol­lowed by 1,804 be­tween 2022 and 2024, link­ing the vi­o­lence to the drug trade.

“Let us not be fooled by those who now pre­tend out­rage,” he added.