KEVON FELMINE

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to re­lease all avail­able in­for­ma­tion on why it can­celled this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and fire­works, say­ing the pub­lic de­serves full trans­paren­cy.

The de­ci­sion, an­nounced on Fri­day, has sparked wide­spread de­bate. Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials ex­plained that the move was tak­en due to on­go­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE).

They cit­ed in­tel­li­gence in­di­cat­ing that bring­ing to­geth­er the Pres­i­dent, ju­di­cia­ry, mil­i­tary, and oth­er na­tion­al lead­ers in one lo­ca­tion could pose a risk. While some threats have re­port­ed­ly been neu­tralised, Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials main­tain that in­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing and the na­tion­al threat lev­el re­mains el­e­vat­ed.

The ad­min­is­tra­tion fur­ther ar­gued that can­celling large pub­lic gath­er­ings was a mat­ter of pub­lic safe­ty, es­pe­cial­ly for vul­ner­a­ble pop­u­la­tions, and that it was nec­es­sary to main­tain an en­vi­ron­ment of peace and sta­bil­i­ty dur­ing the SoE.

In­stead of the an­nu­al pa­rade and fire­works, the Gov­ern­ment will host a Na­tion­al Day of Prayer and Re­flec­tion, en­cour­ag­ing cit­i­zens of all faiths to unite in solemn ob­ser­vance. On­ly “silent” fire­works will be per­mit­ted for pri­vate use, with au­thor­i­ties urg­ing cit­i­zens to keep cel­e­bra­tions calm and re­spect­ful.

Speak­ing to jour­nal­ists in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the sud­den can­cel­la­tion of such a cher­ished na­tion­al tra­di­tion leaves unan­swered ques­tions.

She not­ed that Cab­i­net had al­ready ap­proved the pa­rade in Feb­ru­ary, and prepa­ra­tions were well un­der­way. She said the Gov­ern­ment’s ex­pla­na­tions sug­gest­ed “a mul­ti­plic­i­ty of rea­sons,” in­clud­ing fi­nances and se­cu­ri­ty, and called for clar­i­ty.

“Let me just make it abun­dant­ly clear, I sup­port a day of prayer. I sup­port us, al­ways, as a coun­try, recog­nis­ing the val­ue of prayer. The is­sue, of course, is whether both could not be done, whether they could not look at the pos­si­bil­i­ty of scal­ing it down, be­cause we know the im­por­tance of in­de­pen­dence to a coun­try like Trinidad and To­ba­go. It is some­thing that the en­tire coun­try looks for­ward to, the Prime Min­is­ter, the Pres­i­dent,” she said.

Beck­les said the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade is not sim­ply an event, but a tra­di­tion that cit­i­zens ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pate.

She added that while cit­i­zens re­spect the need for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, the Gov­ern­ment must be forth­com­ing with what­ev­er in­tel­li­gence or risks in­flu­enced its de­ci­sion.

“The Op­po­si­tion is look­ing for­ward to more in­for­ma­tion be­cause there must be some­thing else that the Gov­ern­ment knows that, for some rea­son, it is not shar­ing with the pub­lic,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader main­tained that In­de­pen­dence Day is too im­por­tant to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go to leave doubts hang­ing over its ob­ser­vance.