CHESTER SAM­BRA­NO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

chester.sam­bra­no@guardian.co.tt

Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Arou­ca/Lopinot Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on the Gov­ern­ment to end the cur­rent State of Emer­gency, ar­gu­ing that it has failed to ad­dress ris­ing crime and has in­stead left cit­i­zens liv­ing in fear.

Gon­za­les, a for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter, said he was speak­ing not on­ly in his ca­pac­i­ty as an MP but on be­half of cit­i­zens across Trinidad and To­ba­go who con­tin­ue to face grow­ing in­se­cu­ri­ty in their dai­ly lives.

“To­day I speak not just as a mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, but for all cit­i­zens across Trinidad and To­ba­go who are liv­ing in fear,” he said.

He de­scribed a wors­en­ing sit­u­a­tion in com­mu­ni­ties, point­ing to an in­crease in mur­ders and the emo­tion­al toll on fam­i­lies.

“Every day mur­ders are ris­ing, fam­i­lies are griev­ing, com­mu­ni­ties are un­der pres­sure, cit­i­zens are watch­ing over their shoul­ders and won­der­ing if they are next, yet your Gov­ern­ment is hold­ing on to a State of Emer­gency that clear­ly is not work­ing,” Gon­za­les said.

Ac­cord­ing to Gon­za­les, the mea­sure has grant­ed the Gov­ern­ment sweep­ing pow­ers with­out de­liv­er­ing the in­tend­ed re­sults.

“This State of Emer­gency gives your ad­min­is­tra­tion more pow­er than ZOSO ever pro­posed. More de­ten­tion pow­ers, more re­stric­tions and con­trol. And still crime is out of con­trol,” he said.

He main­tained that de­spite these ex­pand­ed pow­ers, fear con­tin­ues to spread and com­mu­ni­ties re­main vul­ner­a­ble.

“Mur­ders ris­ing, fear spread­ing, com­mu­ni­ties re­main vul­ner­a­ble. So what ex­act­ly is hap­pen­ing here, Prime Min­is­ter?” he asked.

Gon­za­les went on to ques­tion the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach, ar­gu­ing that it re­flects an ab­sence of ef­fec­tive lead­er­ship.

He stressed that emer­gency pow­ers were nev­er in­tend­ed to re­place struc­tured crime-fight­ing strate­gies.

“Emer­gency pow­ers were nev­er meant to re­place strat­e­gy, nev­er meant to re­place polic­ing and se­cu­ri­ty, in­tel­li­gence and com­mu­ni­ty work. But that is ex­act­ly what this has be­come,” Gon­za­les said.

Call­ing for im­me­di­ate ac­tion, Gon­za­les urged the Gov­ern­ment to end what he de­scribed as a “state of emer­gency cha­rade” and to im­ple­ment a com­pre­hen­sive plan to tack­le crime.

“So to­day I say clear­ly, end this state of emer­gency cha­rade. Bring a re­al crime plan. Give peo­ple re­al safe­ty and stop the per­for­mance,” he said.

How­ev­er, da­ta re­leased two weeks ago by the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice Pub­lic In­for­ma­tion Of­fi­cer, Owie Rus­sell, out­lined that for the first 21 days of the cur­rent SoE, there was a sig­nif­i­cant de­cline in al­most every cat­e­go­ry of crime when com­pared with the same pe­ri­od dur­ing the pre­vi­ous mea­sure.

The lat­est SoE was de­clared on March 3 fol­low­ing a spike in mur­ders and oth­er vi­o­lent crime.