Security expert calls for empathy in leadership after protest arrests

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Strate­gic se­cu­ri­ty con­sul­tant Dr Garvin Heer­ah is urg­ing na­tion­al lead­ers to “em­pathise first, leg­is­late sec­ond,” amid grow­ing de­bate over the Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse to Wednes­day’s protest linked to the po­lice-is­sued war­rants for the ar­rest of Ka­ia Sealy over the death of her com­mon-law hus­band Joshua Sama­roo.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Heer­ah cau­tioned against dis­miss­ing pub­lic demon­stra­tions as mere “pub­lic­i­ty farm­ing,” af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar crit­i­cised those who gath­ered in Port- of-Spain on Wednes­day in sup­port of Sealy.

The Prime Min­is­ter de­scribed the demon­stra­tions as at­tempts to pro­voke the po­lice and ques­tioned why sim­i­lar out­rage had not been dis­played over the more than 5,000 mur­ders com­mit­ted in T&T over the past decade.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained that while cit­i­zens are free to protest, those who breach the law will face le­gal con­se­quences. She al­so ref­er­enced the Emer­gency Pow­ers (Pro­hi­bi­tion of Pub­lic Protests and Demon­stra­tions) Or­der 2026, which pro­hibits protests with­in 500 me­tres of the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions.

Heer­ah ac­knowl­edged the Prime Min­is­ter’s con­cerns over vi­o­lent crime but warned against rhetoric that could alien­ate cit­i­zens ex­er­cis­ing their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic rights.

“While I ac­knowl­edge the Prime Min­is­ter’s valid con­cerns re­gard­ing the stag­ger­ing loss of over 5,000 lives to vi­o­lent crime over the past decade, what seems like a cri­sis that de­mand­ed our col­lec­tive out­rage, I must re­spect­ful­ly cau­tion against lan­guage that dis­miss­es le­git­i­mate pub­lic ex­pres­sion,” Heer­ah said.

He stressed, how­ev­er, that pub­lic trust re­mains cen­tral to ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance and law en­force­ment.

“As se­cu­ri­ty pro­fes­sion­als across the spec­trum, we un­der­stand that pub­lic trust is the cor­ner­stone of ef­fec­tive gov­er­nance and, more im­por­tant­ly, law en­force­ment. When cit­i­zens take to the streets, they are send­ing a sig­nal, and lead­ers must read that sig­nal care­ful­ly and not cat­e­gorise it,” he stat­ed.

Heer­ah al­so ques­tioned the use of emer­gency pow­ers to re­strict pub­lic protests, say­ing such mea­sures must be ex­er­cised care­ful­ly and trans­par­ent­ly.

“The in­vo­ca­tion of emer­gency pow­ers leg­is­la­tion to re­strict protest rights is a mea­sure that must al­ways be ap­plied with pre­ci­sion and trans­paren­cy, be­cause the mo­ment the pub­lic feels that law is be­ing used as a tool of sup­pres­sion rather than pro­tec­tion, we risk a far greater se­cu­ri­ty chal­lenge than any sin­gle protest,” he said.

Of­fer­ing ad­vice to the coun­try’s lead­er­ship, Heer­ah added, “Em­pathise first, leg­is­late sec­ond. The peo­ple are not the en­e­my. En­gage them, rep­re­sent them and bring them in­to the so­lu­tion. That is how we build the so­cial con­tract that ul­ti­mate­ly makes all com­mu­ni­ties safer.”

Mean­while, po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Win­ford James said the Prime Min­is­ter was re­spond­ing from both a po­lit­i­cal and gov­er­nance stand­point, while not­ing many de­tails sur­round­ing the mat­ter re­main un­clear.

“It may or may not be a pub­lic­i­ty stunt. So far as Kam­la is con­cerned, it is,” Dr James said, adding that nei­ther the pub­lic nor the Prime Min­is­ter may yet have all the facts sur­round­ing the is­sue.

He ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar had a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to re­spond pub­licly be­cause pro­test­ers were di­rect­ly ap­peal­ing to her of­fice.

“The Prime Min­is­ter did come out and speak. Part of her re­sponse was to pro­tect her Gov­ern­ment, and the sec­ond part is that the po­lice have their work to do and they will have to en­force the law, so long as they don’t break the law,” James said.

He not­ed that Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared re­luc­tant to make any de­ter­mi­na­tion on the ac­tions of the po­lice with­out all the avail­able in­for­ma­tion, but said she may still raise the mat­ter with­in the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil.

James al­so sug­gest­ed that pro­test­ers may be­lieve they pos­sess suf­fi­cient in­for­ma­tion to judge the sit­u­a­tion.

“She is sig­nalling that peo­ple must do things in a cer­tain way, which she is not see­ing. I don’t think she wants to get her­self twist­ed up with whether the po­lice are guilty or not,” he said.

How­ev­er, James main­tained that the Prime Min­is­ter had, in fact, re­spond­ed to pub­lic calls for com­ment.

“The pro­test­ers want­ed the Prime Min­is­ter to re­spond. She has re­spond­ed,” he added.