Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar (Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man) to name the at­tor­ney with “close ties to the UNC Gov­ern­ment” who is de­mand­ing cer­tain ques­tion­able hir­ings—so much so that it has re­sult­ed in re­port­ed death threats against De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

“Who is the UNC at­tor­ney de­mand­ing ques­tion­able and un­ap­proved hir­ings? Is this Resh­mi Ram­nar­ine 2.0 to the Kam­la 2.0?” Gon­za­les asked, fol­low­ing the re­cent re­port of a plot to kill Sturge.

The re­port iden­ti­fied con­spir­a­tors as a “lawyer with close ties to the rul­ing UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion,” an il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tor from To­co, an­oth­er from San­ta Cruz, and a se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cer. The at­tor­ney, who is said to be in­flu­en­tial, was re­port­ed­ly de­mand­ing the abil­i­ty to se­lect staff in Sturge’s min­istry, the To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy of­fice (where Sturge is MP), the mil­i­tary, and the Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme.

The State of Emer­gency was de­clared fol­low­ing a threat from a crime syn­di­cate op­er­at­ing in­side and out­side of the prison sys­tem.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie lat­er said the SoE was de­clared fol­low­ing in­tel­li­gence re­ports re­gard­ing plots to as­sas­si­nate “key Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials,” mem­bers of the ju­di­cia­ry and jus­tice sys­tem, and law en­force­ment per­son­nel.

On Au­gust 11, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the lives of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ters Khadi­jah Ameen, Bar­ry Padarath, and URP Pro­gramme Man­ag­er Feeroze Khan were threat­ened in con­nec­tion with CEPEP and the URP.

Par­ty sources claimed that pres­sure was be­ing mount­ed on Sturge re­gard­ing em­ploy­ment, and there were plans by some in­di­vid­u­als to stage a protest out­side his con­stituen­cy of­fice. His se­cu­ri­ty was tight­ened.

Top Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress of­fi­cials in To­co/San­gre Grande claimed Sturge had been stay­ing away from the con­stituen­cy and on­ly met res­i­dents by ap­point­ment. They said the first threats came from in­di­vid­u­als re­port­ed­ly linked to a high-pro­file pris­on­er.

Sturge, who worked as a crim­i­nal de­fence at­tor­ney be­fore be­ing elect­ed as To­co/San­gre Grande MP and be­com­ing a Gov­ern­ment min­is­ter, did not an­swer re­peat­ed calls by Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day re­gard­ing the threat to his life. Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, chair­man of the To­co-San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy of­fice Kewin Charles, and oth­er of­fi­cials al­so did not re­spond to calls. There was no re­sponse from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar on the is­sue ei­ther.

But Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Chair­man and Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Gon­za­les said swift ac­tion was need­ed to pro­tect the min­is­ter’s life.

“Threats against the life of any pub­lic of­fi­cial must be tak­en se­ri­ous­ly! It is the rea­son why the PNM sup­port­ed the SoE. We trust­ed the words of the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er. The re­ports of threats against the De­fence Min­is­ter are equal­ly dis­turb­ing, and swift ac­tion is need­ed on the part of the se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices. That be­ing said, the Gov­ern­ment can­not be al­lowed a free pass.

“Was this the re­al rea­son for can­celling the In­de­pen­dence Day Pa­rade and fire­works, or is this an­oth­er con­ve­nient dis­trac­tion? Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge and the Prime Min­is­ter are on pub­lic record in stat­ing that Sturge wasn’t in­ter­est­ed in be­ing ap­point­ed Min­is­ter of De­fence. The pub­lic must ask why. Did he per­ceive a con­flict of in­ter­est be­tween his pri­vate prac­tice as a lawyer and the stance he would be ex­pect­ed to take as a pub­lic of­fice hold­er in the Cab­i­net?”

Gon­za­les added, “Why did the Prime Min­is­ter pro­ceed to ap­point Sturge as a Min­is­ter in her Cab­i­net de­spite his re­luc­tance to be so ap­point­ed? The Prime Min­is­ter should per­haps con­sid­er re­mov­ing the bur­den that she has placed on the shoul­ders of the Min­is­ter, who nev­er want­ed that bur­den in the first place, for rea­sons best known to him. Is the Gov­ern­ment so bad­ly off it re­quires an SoE to pro­tect Min­is­ters? What about the pub­lic, who can­not even cel­e­brate their coun­try’s In­de­pen­dence be­cause of is­sues in the Gov­ern­ment?”

Mean­while, a se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cer, when con­tact­ed could not speak on the al­leged threat against Sturge but he said there were se­cu­ri­ty mech­a­nisms in place, if such con­cerns arose.

He added that it was like­ly that Sturge’s se­cu­ri­ty de­tail would be in­creased with mem­bers of the Reg­i­ment Spe­cial Forces as part of his new bath of se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel. - With re­port­ing by Shane Su­perville