Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says pub­lic events host­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, in­clud­ing the Mon­day Night Re­port, will not be stopped de­spite al­leged death threats to some Cab­i­net min­is­ters.

But the Prime Min­is­ter ad­mit­ted that “mi­nor se­cu­ri­ty ad­just­ments have been made on a tem­po­rary ba­sis” to pro­tect some of her min­is­ters.

Ear­li­er this month, dur­ing a UNC meet­ing, the Prime Min­is­ter claimed death threats had been made against the lives of Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Util­i­ties Bar­ry Padarath and Min­is­ter of Rur­al De­vel­op­ment and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Khadi­jah Ameen, in con­nec­tion with the Gov­ern­ment’s re­form of the Com­mu­ni­ty-Based En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion and En­hance­ment Pro­gramme (CEPEP) and Un­em­ploy­ment Re­lief Pro­gramme (URP).

Last week­end, claims emerged of threats against the life of De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge, over his re­port­ed re­fusal to ap­point hand-picked in­di­vid­u­als to State and con­stituen­cy po­si­tions, with a lawyer linked to the UNC al­so im­pli­cat­ed.

Asked if the par­ty would con­sid­er sus­pend­ing its pub­lic meet­ings, such as its Mon­day Night Re­port and stand-your-ground con­sul­ta­tions, in light of these al­leged threats, the Prime Min­is­ter, in a What­sApp mes­sage, said, “At this time, (there are) no re­stric­tions on move­ment or pub­lic gath­er­ings. I al­so don’t an­tic­i­pate any re­stric­tions in the fu­ture. I take the ad­vice of the min­is­ters re­spon­si­ble for the pro­tec­tive ser­vices in these mat­ters.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said some se­cu­ri­ty ad­just­ments have been made, but not to her per­son­al se­cu­ri­ty de­tail.

“Not for my­self. Just a few tem­po­rary arrange­ments are in place for a cou­ple Cab­i­net mem­bers,” she said.

Mean­while, UNC Deputy Po­lit­i­cal Leader Jear­lean John said the par­ty is in fre­quent dis­cus­sions with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on whether its pub­lic events should con­tin­ue in light of the threats and the on­go­ing State of Emer­gency (SoE).

How­ev­er, John de­clared that the UNC will not be “in­tim­i­dat­ed or si­lenced.”

“We are in on­go­ing con­tact with the TTPS and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials, and we will con­tin­ue to take their guid­ance on the se­cu­ri­ty of our pub­lic events, in­clud­ing the Mon­day Night Re­port. The safe­ty of our peo­ple is para­mount.”

She added, “We will take every pre­cau­tion nec­es­sary to pro­tect the gen­er­al pub­lic and our mem­bers, and we will ad­vise the coun­try on any ad­just­ments to up­com­ing events.”

John said the UNC was tak­ing the al­leged threats against her col­leagues “very se­ri­ous­ly,” adding that they re­mained “deeply con­cerned” for the safe­ty of Gov­ern­ment mem­bers, their sup­port­ers, and the wider pub­lic.

How­ev­er, the UNC deputy leader said they will al­so not cow­er to the crim­i­nals.

“We will not al­low crim­i­nal el­e­ments to dic­tate the de­mo­c­ra­t­ic life of this coun­try,” she wrote.

John posit­ed that for the past ten years, the pop­u­la­tion has en­dured mur­der, may­hem, ex­tor­tion, cor­rup­tion and un­der­de­vel­op­ment.

“That is what we are fight­ing to change, and noth­ing will de­ter us from that mis­sion,” she added.

John said the UNC will con­tin­ue to “stand strong, speak out, and take the fight to those who have held back our na­tion for far too long.”

On Mon­day, Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert ac­cused the UNC-Gov­ern­ment of hypocrisy, point­ing out that while it can­celled the In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade over se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, it con­tin­ues to host pub­lic par­ty events.