NO SPECIAL OPS FOR PNM AREAS

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says she will not au­tho­rise spe­cial op­er­a­tions in Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-con­trolled com­mu­ni­ties, de­clar­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s new crime-fight­ing mea­sures will in­stead be con­cen­trat­ed in Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-held con­stituen­cies and To­ba­go.

Re­spond­ing to Op­po­si­tion crit­i­cism of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill yes­ter­day, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said in a so­cial me­dia post that the Gov­ern­ment would ef­fec­tive­ly ex­clude PNM-con­trolled con­stituen­cies and lo­cal gov­ern­ment dis­tricts from the ini­tia­tive if their rep­re­sen­ta­tives do not sup­port the mea­sures.

“Since the Op­po­si­tion MPs and sup­port­ers do not want Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions, I will on­ly al­low it in gov­ern­ment-con­trolled ar­eas,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar said.

“They can con­tin­ue to al­low their hard­core con­stituen­cies to be de­stroyed from with­in. I’m not both­ered.”

The de­c­la­ra­tion marks a sig­nif­i­cant shift in how the Prime Min­is­ter says the leg­is­la­tion will be im­ple­ment­ed, com­ing just days af­ter the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026, was passed in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

The leg­is­la­tion es­tab­lish­es sev­en polic­ing dis­tricts across the coun­try and al­lows spe­cial op­er­a­tions to be con­duct­ed by po­lice, with or with­out as­sis­tance from the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force. It al­so cre­ates a sep­a­rate frame­work for ar­eas de­clared “closed ar­eas,” where ad­di­tion­al pow­ers can be ex­er­cised. The bill was passed in the House ear­ly Sat­ur­day af­ter a marathon de­bate and is still be­fore Par­lia­ment.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said op­er­a­tions would in­stead be au­tho­rised in the 26 con­stituen­cies held by the UNC and the 70 UNC-con­trolled lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­toral dis­tricts.

She added that the ini­tia­tive would al­so be ex­tend­ed to To­ba­go’s two To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty-held con­stituen­cies af­ter con­sul­ta­tion with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine.

The Prime Min­is­ter’s an­nounce­ment fol­lowed strong crit­i­cism of the bill by PNM MPs dur­ing Fri­day’s House de­bate.

Among the sharpest crit­ics was Port-of-Spain South MP Kei­th Scot­land, who de­scribed the leg­is­la­tion as a “sprawl­ing as­sault” on con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and warned that it could cre­ate dif­fer­ent stan­dards of free­dom for peo­ple liv­ing in com­mu­ni­ties sub­ject­ed to spe­cial op­er­a­tions.

Op­po­si­tion MPs al­so raised con­cerns about pro­vi­sions re­lat­ing to search­es, de­ten­tion, cur­fews and oth­er pow­ers con­tained in the leg­is­la­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar, how­ev­er, char­ac­terised the Op­po­si­tion’s ob­jec­tions as an at­tempt to con­vince PNM sup­port­ers that the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to use the po­lice and De­fence Force against them. She re­ject­ed that claim and said she would not force the mea­sures on com­mu­ni­ties whose po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tives op­posed them.

“I am not beg­ging to help any com­mu­ni­ty be­come safer if it doesn’t want to be helped,” she said.

“The PNM are free to tell their con­stituen­cies and sup­port­ers not to ac­cept help, while the lo­cal drug mafia and vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs con­tin­ue to de­stroy their lives.”

The Prime Min­is­ter went fur­ther, claim­ing PNM MPs, coun­cil­lors and sup­port­ers were “clear­ly against” the leg­is­la­tion and ac­cus­ing them of pre­fer­ring their com­mu­ni­ties re­main un­der the in­flu­ence of crim­i­nal gangs rather than ac­cept the Gov­ern­ment’s se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures.

The PNM has not said it sup­ports crim­i­nal gangs or op­pos­es law en­force­ment in its con­stituen­cies. Its par­lia­men­tary ob­jec­tions have cen­tred on the scope of the pow­ers con­tained in the leg­is­la­tion and their im­pli­ca­tions for con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the Gov­ern­ment would now di­rect what she de­scribed as “hard polic­ing” to­wards crim­i­nal gangs and drug traf­fick­ers op­er­at­ing with­in gov­ern­ment-con­trolled ar­eas.

“The vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs and drug lords re­sid­ing or op­er­at­ing in­side gov­ern­ment-con­trolled con­stituen­cies and lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­toral dis­tricts will there­fore be sub­ject to hard polic­ing as out­lined in the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill,” she said.

She ar­gued that ex­tra­or­di­nary mea­sures were nec­es­sary be­cause law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have lived in fear of vi­o­lent crime for decades, cit­ing home in­va­sions, sex­u­al vi­o­lence and at­tacks on fam­i­lies and the el­der­ly.

The leg­is­la­tion rep­re­sents the Gov­ern­ment’s sec­ond at­tempt this year to in­tro­duce a spe­cial-op­er­a­tions frame­work.

Its Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSO) Bill failed in the Sen­ate in Jan­u­ary af­ter re­ceiv­ing 15 votes in favour, 14 against and one ab­sten­tion, falling short of the three-fifths ma­jor­i­ty re­quired for pas­sage.

The re­place­ment Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill was in­tro­duced last Wednes­day and passed in the House af­ter de­bate on Fri­day. Un­like the failed ZOSO leg­is­la­tion, the new bill is be­ing pur­sued as sim­ple-ma­jor­i­ty leg­is­la­tion.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said PNM-con­trolled com­mu­ni­ties were free to re­ject the ap­proach.

“The PNM are free to con­tin­ue to al­low their con­stituen­cies to be over­run by vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs,” she said.

“It is their de­mo­c­ra­t­ic choice to al­low them­selves to be de­stroyed from with­in.”

The Prime Min­is­ter’s de­c­la­ra­tion prompt­ed an im­me­di­ate and an­gry re­sponse from se­nior PNM fig­ures, with for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les ques­tion­ing whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sug­gest­ing that she, rather than the Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, would de­ter­mine where spe­cial op­er­a­tions are con­duct­ed.

“So she will de­cide where and how that racist law will ap­ply???? She is the CoP or she con­trols the CoP????” Gon­za­les said in a mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia.

“Kam­la must stop her provo­ca­tion of the peo­ple of TT!!!!”

Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young al­so con­demned Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments, ac­cus­ing her of pro­mot­ing racial and so­cial di­vi­sion and de­scrib­ing the re­marks as “very dis­turb­ing.”

Young said the PM’s state­ment ap­peared to sug­gest she would de­ter­mine where closed ar­eas, cor­dons and cur­fews would be im­posed un­der the leg­is­la­tion.

“Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s un­hinged so­cial me­dia rants are be­com­ing more and more con­cern­ing,” Young said.

“The lat­est rant, which is ground­ed in con­tin­ued racial and so­cial seg­re­ga­tion, is to be re­ject­ed out­right.”

Young al­so ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of us­ing the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the SO Bill to di­vert at­ten­tion from pro­posed amend­ments to the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act, which are sched­uled for de­bate in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to­mor­row. He al­leged the amend­ments were in­tend­ed to weak­en pro­cure­ment over­sight and make it eas­i­er for con­tracts to be award­ed to Gov­ern­ment fi­nanciers and as­so­ciates.