Sturge defends secrecy on national security matters

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor - Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Re­port­ing from Mi­a­mi

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge says the Gov­ern­ment is legal­ly jus­ti­fied in re­fus­ing to dis­close cer­tain na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­for­ma­tion, ar­gu­ing that the law clear­ly per­mits of­fi­cials to with­hold de­tails that could threat­en the coun­try’s de­fence or in­tel­li­gence op­er­a­tions.

How­ev­er, his po­si­tion and the ra­tio­nale be­hind it have prompt­ed the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T (MATT) to ex­press deep con­cern.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, Sturge said Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion not to an­swer some ques­tions from the Op­po­si­tion and me­dia was ground­ed in long-es­tab­lished le­gal prin­ci­ples and pro­vi­sions with­in T&T’s Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act.

He said sev­er­al ques­tions raised in re­cent months touched on “sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty is­sues,” in­clud­ing the coun­try’s se­cu­ri­ty co­op­er­a­tion with the Unit­ed States and threats posed by transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works.

“Many of the ques­tions asked by both mem­bers of the Op­po­si­tion, as well as some ex­pe­ri­enced jour­nal­ists, were ques­tions which they knew could not be pub­licly dis­closed nor com­pelled to be dis­closed,” Sturge said.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia sought to ask Sturge what spe­cif­ic “as­sets” T&T re­quires from the Unit­ed States, af­ter he told US War Sec­re­tary Pe­te Hegseth in Flori­da on Thurs­day that the coun­try could serve as an ef­fec­tive south­ern an­chor in the fight against drug car­tels if it is prop­er­ly equipped.

Sturge ar­gued yes­ter­day that the Gov­ern­ment is en­ti­tled to refuse dis­clo­sure where re­leas­ing in­for­ma­tion would be harm­ful to the pub­lic in­ter­est or com­pro­mise na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“When the Gov­ern­ment re­fused to an­swer ques­tions asked on the ba­sis that dis­clo­sure would be in­im­i­cal to the pub­lic in­ter­est, both the Op­po­si­tion and el­e­ments in the me­dia chose to mis­lead the pub­lic by paint­ing a pic­ture that the Gov­ern­ment was with­hold­ing in­for­ma­tion from the pub­lic for sin­is­ter rea­sons,” he said.

Sturge point­ed to sev­er­al land­mark ju­di­cial rul­ings from the Unit­ed King­dom and Com­mon­wealth ju­ris­dic­tions that af­firm the au­thor­i­ty of gov­ern­ments to de­ter­mine what in­for­ma­tion must re­main con­fi­den­tial for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons.

Ac­cord­ing to Sturge, this le­gal po­si­tion is re­flect­ed in Sec­tion 25 of T&T’s Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act, which pro­hibits dis­clo­sure of in­for­ma­tion that could prej­u­dice the de­fence of the coun­try or the law­ful ac­tiv­i­ties of se­cu­ri­ty and in­tel­li­gence agen­cies.

“The Min­istry of De­fence wish­es to re­it­er­ate that ques­tions which touch and con­cern the ex­ist­ing state of mil­i­tary as­sets, the ac­qui­si­tion of or the re­quests for same, par­tic­u­lar­ly where dis­cussed in cam­era with our al­lies will not be en­ter­tained,” Sturge stat­ed.

He al­so urged the Op­po­si­tion and me­dia to act re­spon­si­bly when rais­ing is­sues re­lat­ed to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

But in re­sponse, MATT re­ject­ed what it de­scribed as an at­tack on press free­dom by Sturge, while reaf­firm­ing the me­dia’s du­ty to ques­tion Gov­ern­ment on mat­ters of pub­lic in­ter­est.

In a state­ment, MATT ac­knowl­edged Gov­ern­ment is legal­ly en­ti­tled to with­hold cer­tain sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion, but stressed that jour­nal­ists have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to seek an­swers on be­half of the pub­lic.

“Ques­tions re­gard­ing mil­i­tary as­sets, nar­co-ter­ror­ism co­op­er­a­tion, and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty threats are mat­ters of sig­nif­i­cant pub­lic in­ter­est,” MATT said.

MATT not­ed that un­der Sec­tion 25 of the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act, Gov­ern­ment may refuse to dis­close in­for­ma­tion that could prej­u­dice na­tion­al de­fence. How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion said such pro­vi­sions do not di­min­ish the me­dia’s role in hold­ing au­thor­i­ties ac­count­able.

“In­tegri­ty in jour­nal­ism is not de­fined by si­lence or the avoid­ance of sen­si­tive top­ics, but by the com­mit­ment to ask dif­fi­cult ques­tions even when the State ex­er­cis­es its right to with­hold an an­swer,” the as­so­ci­a­tion stat­ed.

MATT al­so called for a clear and nar­row in­ter­pre­ta­tion of Emer­gency Pow­ers reg­u­la­tions dur­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so ac­cused Sturge of fail­ing to ap­pre­ci­ate the prin­ci­ples of trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty in gov­ern­ment. He said Sturge ap­peared “ill-pre­pared for pub­lic of­fice” and sug­gest­ed his re­sponse to re­cent ques­tions about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters re­flect­ed a trou­bling ap­proach to open­ness.

“The Op­po­si­tion does not ex­pect the Gov­ern­ment or the Min­is­ter to dis­close de­tailed and sen­si­tive na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­for­ma­tion that can un­der­mine our col­lec­tive na­tion­al in­ter­ests,” Gon­za­les said.

“How­ev­er, it is the du­ty of the Min­is­ter and the Gov­ern­ment to speak open­ly and trans­par­ent­ly to all cit­i­zens.”

He said the Op­po­si­tion would con­tin­ue press­ing the is­sue de­spite what he called at­tempts to avoid scruti­ny.