Rowley criticises Kamla, warns against ZOSO approach

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has crit­i­cised the pro­posed Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions leg­is­la­tion and tak­en is­sue with re­cent com­ments made by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, warn­ing that the rhetoric and the law it­self could deep­en di­vi­sion and un­der­mine the rights of law abid­ing cit­i­zens.

In a Face­book post, Row­ley re­act­ed to pub­lic com­ments sur­round­ing the pro­posed leg­is­la­tion and said sim­i­lar re­marks would not have been ac­cept­ed if he had made them while in of­fice.

“If I had said any­thing near­ly as of­fen­sive and ar­ro­gant as what Kam­la re­cent­ly said, every­one in this coun­try would have known not to ac­cept that from the Prime Min­is­ter. I am proud of that fact. It con­firms to me that I was held to a high­er stan­dard and I am sat­is­fied that I met those stan­dards!”

Row­ley’s com­ments fol­lowed re­marks by Per­sad-Bisses­sar on X, where she crit­i­cised op­po­nents of the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill.

“Over the past few days, dur­ing com­men­tary on the Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, the coun­try has wit­nessed a pa­rade of weak men and women op­pos­ing the Bill, whose on­ly ap­par­ent goal is the de­fence of vi­o­lent crim­i­nals.

It is as­ton­ish­ing how the PNM and pseu­do ‘in­de­pen­dent’ groups have sud­den­ly dis­cov­ered a man­u­fac­tured sense of hu­man­i­ty to de­fend crim­i­nals and gang­sters. They say noth­ing about the crime, rob­beries, rapes, mur­ders, and bru­tal home in­va­sions that have plagued the coun­try for the past decade. They al­so re­main silent on the de­hu­man­is­ing treat­ment en­dured by vic­tims of crime.”

Row­ley ar­gued that the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion be­ing ad­vanced for the leg­is­la­tion was in­ap­pro­pri­ate in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s so­cial con­text.

“These ar­gu­ments to jus­ti­fy their dan­ger­ous leg­is­la­tion to be pro­mul­gat­ed in this un­easy mul­ti racial, mul­ti eth­nic so­ci­ety is not an ap­pro­pri­ate crime fight­ing tool.”

He al­so raised con­cerns about the pow­ers the law would grant to law en­force­ment of­fi­cers and the ab­sence of par­lia­men­tary over­sight.

“To stig­ma­tize com­mu­ni­ties and re­moval of the en­trenched rights of the law abid­ing at the be­hest of Of­fi­cers with­out Par­lia­men­tary over­sight is not what one ex­pects from a Gov­ern­ment that is pre­pared to do its job of go­ing at the law­break­ers with­out tram­pling on those who are law abid­ing.”

Row­ley warned that the ap­pli­ca­tion of the law could have se­ri­ous con­se­quences.

“Giv­en the di­vi­sive pol­i­tics and the sus­pi­cious na­ture of so many it may very well turn out that the jus­ti­fi­ca­tion of ‘ fight­ing crime ‘ might not be enough to man­age the fall­out when the law is ap­plied. The un­su­per­vised au­thor­i­ty will breed abuse and re­sent­ment and all that flows.”