PE­TER CHRISTO­PHER

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

pe­ter.christo­pher@guardian.co.tt

The Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to can­cel this year’s In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade has sparked re­newed de­bate, with crim­i­nol­o­gist Dr Dar­ius Figuera warn­ing that it points to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of grave na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty threats.

Figuera not­ed the can­cel­la­tion came just days af­ter Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro de­clared that the threat which prompt­ed the de­c­la­ra­tion of a State of Emer­gency (SoE) had been neu­tralised.

“The an­nounce­ment sug­gests there is an­oth­er, more se­ri­ous con­cern for law en­force­ment of­fi­cials,” he told the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day.

“Are there then a se­ries of threats that we don’t know about? That is what came to my mind im­me­di­ate­ly, be­cause we were told that the threat that forced them to call a SoE has been neu­tralised. What threat ex­ists that is so po­tent that it can at­tack the pa­rade and present a grave threat to the en­tire ap­pa­ra­tus of the state col­lect­ed in one place to view the pa­rade?

“That means, if there is such a threat, it is even more po­tent than the one that was sup­pos­ed­ly neu­tralised that re­sult­ed in the SoE,” Figuera said.

He added: “If so, where is that threat and what is its ori­gin? Be­cause what you are talk­ing about now is a threat that has the ca­pac­i­ty to strike as a ter­ror­ist at­tack at an event like the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade. So it rais­es many grave ques­tions.”

For­mer Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith, how­ev­er, said he could not sec­ond-guess the de­ci­sion, stress­ing that se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials may have ac­cess to in­tel­li­gence not avail­able to the wider pub­lic.

“The law en­force­ment au­thor­i­ties would have in­for­ma­tion that oth­ers may not have, and if they are stat­ing that there is a se­cu­ri­ty con­cern that can be a risk to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty for the pa­rade, it is dif­fi­cult for me or any­one to chal­lenge it, be­cause they will have in­for­ma­tion we do not have,” said Grif­fith, who al­so served as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter un­der the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship ad­min­is­tra­tion.

He added: “I’m not go­ing to get in­to the pol­i­tics. The politi­cians on ei­ther side will de­fend it or con­demn it. My take is from an­oth­er law en­force­ment per­spec­tive: if the agen­cies have stat­ed that there’s a clear and present dan­ger based on in­tel­li­gence and it has been rec­om­mend­ed to the State, the State is left with no oth­er choice.”

Grif­fith al­so felt the Gov­ern­ment han­dled the an­nounce­ment more ap­pro­pri­ate­ly than the roll­out of the State of Emer­gency, where he ar­gued too much sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion had been shared.

“It may very well be some­thing on a need-to-know ba­sis that they do not want the pub­lic to be aware of, which, again, I think is the right ap­proach. I was con­cerned when the Com­mis­sion­er pre­vi­ous­ly said too much by speak­ing about the pris­ons and peo­ple call­ing hits. If this time around that is not be­ing done, I think that is ap­pro­pri­ate, be­cause it is on a need-to-know ba­sis,” Grif­fith said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr In­di­ra Ram­per­sad, how­ev­er, sug­gest­ed that the can­cel­la­tion may have had more to do with eco­nom­ics than na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Maybe they’re not in a po­si­tion to di­vulge the safe­ty is­sues—I do not know with re­gard to that. But it would make sense in an eco­nom­ic sense, be­cause it does seem there is an is­sue with the cash flow. They did in­her­it an econ­o­my in sham­bles, as we know. They’re try­ing to make ends meet with what­ev­er avail­able funds they have, so I think it’s a cost-cut­ting mea­sure,” Ram­per­sad said.

She added: “Gen­er­al­ly, I think it is a cost-cut­ting mea­sure. I’m not sure of the con­nec­tions with the se­cu­ri­ty is­sue be­cause I do not have full in­for­ma­tion. But per­haps a break­down of the cost of host­ing the pa­rade might help the pub­lic bet­ter un­der­stand the de­ci­sion.”

Ques­tions sent to Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro via What­sApp yes­ter­day went unan­swered up to press time.