PM promises ‘minimal inconvenience’ during Special Operations

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has sought to re­as­sure law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that mea­sures will be put in place to min­imise dis­rup­tions if they live or work in com­mu­ni­ties sub­ject­ed to Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions.

“Law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear. Every­thing will be put in place to en­sure min­i­mal in­con­ve­nience to them dur­ing spe­cial op­er­a­tions,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day.

Her as­sur­ance came af­ter the con­tro­ver­sial Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill, 2026 passed both Hous­es of Par­lia­ment, paving the way for a new polic­ing regime un­der which com­mu­ni­ties can be des­ig­nat­ed as “closed ar­eas” where move­ment may be re­strict­ed.

The leg­is­la­tion cleared the Sen­ate by a 16-15 mar­gin af­ter Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark used his cast­ing vote to break a 15-15 dead­lock.

Asked when the bill would re­ceive pres­i­den­tial as­sent, Per­sad-Bisses­sar replied: “Soon.”

How­ev­er, she de­clined to say when the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions frame­work would be ac­ti­vat­ed, when Heads of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions would be ap­point­ed, or whether any com­mu­ni­ties had al­ready been iden­ti­fied for pos­si­ble des­ig­na­tion.

Un­der the leg­is­la­tion, peo­ple en­ter­ing or leav­ing a des­ig­nat­ed closed area will gen­er­al­ly re­quire a per­mit.

Nei­ther the Gov­ern­ment nor the Po­lice Ser­vice has yet pro­vid­ed de­tailed in­for­ma­tion on how the per­mit sys­tem will func­tion, in­clud­ing how ap­pli­ca­tions will be processed, how per­mits will be ver­i­fied at check­points, or how res­i­dents will be ac­com­mo­dat­ed in emer­gen­cies.

Dur­ing de­bate on the bill, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge sug­gest­ed per­mits could be ap­plied for elec­tron­i­cal­ly, in­clud­ing via What­sApp.

Guardian Me­dia asked the Prime Min­is­ter when the leg­is­la­tion would be op­er­a­tionalised, whether ar­eas had al­ready been ear­marked for des­ig­na­tion, and whether she main­tained her pre­vi­ous­ly stat­ed po­si­tion that Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions would be lim­it­ed to con­stituen­cies or lo­cal gov­ern­ment ar­eas con­trolled by the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP).

Per­sad-Bisses­sar de­clined to an­swer pub­licly.

“I will not make pub­lic an­swers to ques­tions one to four as it will give in­for­ma­tion to crim­i­nals,” she said.

Asked what suc­cess un­der the ini­tia­tive would look like, the Prime Min­is­ter re­spond­ed: “Fur­ther de­creas­es in the crime rate.”

When Guardian Me­dia raised con­cerns that with­hold­ing op­er­a­tional de­tails could leave res­i­dents un­pre­pared for sud­den re­stric­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly giv­en the per­mit re­quire­ments, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again as­sured that cit­i­zens had noth­ing to fear and that safe­guards would be put in place to re­duce any in­con­ve­nience.

The Prime Min­is­ter was al­so chal­lenged on whether pub­licly stat­ing that Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions would on­ly take place in Gov­ern­ment and TPP-con­trolled ar­eas could ef­fec­tive­ly sig­nal to crim­i­nals where the mea­sures would not be en­forced.

She re­ject­ed that ar­gu­ment and in­stead blamed the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment.

“Not at all. The PNM pub­licly told the vi­o­lent crim­i­nals that they will not al­low spe­cial op­er­a­tions in their con­stituen­cies at a pub­lic press con­fer­ence. It is the PNM who tipped off the vi­o­lent crim­i­nals that their con­stituen­cies will be safe havens for vi­o­lent crim­i­nals,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she had mere­ly re­spond­ed to the Op­po­si­tion’s po­si­tion to re­as­sure res­i­dents in Gov­ern­ment-rep­re­sent­ed ar­eas that “they will be cov­ered by SOs.”

She al­so said the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­gramme of new po­lice posts would sup­port the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions ini­tia­tive.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, six posts have al­ready been com­plet­ed, while an­oth­er ten are ex­pect­ed to be built with­in the next month.

“We are on tar­get to com­plete all be­fore year’s end. They will be used to com­ple­ment the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions,” she said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj says the Gov­ern­ment owes cit­i­zens greater trans­paren­cy on how a pol­i­cy ca­pa­ble of re­strict­ing move­ment and oth­er free­doms will op­er­ate.

“The Prime Min­is­ter must have a sense of re­spon­si­ble gov­er­nance. Any pol­i­cy that seeks to cur­tail the free­dom of our cit­i­zens’ rights must be put for­ward in an open and trans­par­ent man­ner,” Ram­samooj told Guardian Me­dia.

He ar­gued that con­struc­tive crit­i­cism should be wel­comed if it helps strength­en mea­sures de­signed to com­bat crime.

Ram­samooj warned that with­hold­ing too much in­for­ma­tion risks cre­at­ing the im­pres­sion that the pol­i­cy has not been ful­ly de­vel­oped.

“The coun­try has yet to see a co­her­ent strate­gic plan that will win pub­lic trust,” he said.

Asked whether the Prime Min­is­ter’s as­sur­ance that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear was suf­fi­cient, Ram­samooj said it ul­ti­mate­ly de­pends on con­fi­dence in those re­spon­si­ble for en­forc­ing the mea­sures.

“Law-abid­ing cit­i­zens will have noth­ing to fear if they have con­fi­dence and pub­lic trust in the per­sons en­trust­ed with that re­spon­si­bil­i­ty,” he said.

He al­so crit­i­cised the idea of de­ter­min­ing Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions zones along po­lit­i­cal lines.

Not­ing that con­stituen­cies con­tain nu­mer­ous polling di­vi­sions with vary­ing vot­ing pat­terns, Ram­samooj de­scribed such an ap­proach as “po­lit­i­cal fol­ly.”

“The ill-con­ceived per­spec­tive of such a pro­gramme af­fect­ing UNC-on­ly con­stituen­cies is in­deed a very, very bad pos­tur­ing of shal­low po­lit­i­cal think­ing,” he said.

PNM chair­man and for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les al­so called on the Prime Min­is­ter to ex­plain how the leg­is­la­tion will be im­ple­ment­ed.

“She owes the coun­try an ex­pla­na­tion as to how she in­tends to op­er­a­tionalise this un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and dan­ger­ous piece of leg­is­la­tion in this coun­try,” Gon­za­les said.

He ar­gued that con­cerns about na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty should not be used to shield the pol­i­cy from pub­lic scruti­ny.

“She must not hide be­hind the veil of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty,” he said.

Gon­za­les urged cit­i­zens to close­ly mon­i­tor the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the leg­is­la­tion, ar­gu­ing that the new pow­ers have im­pli­ca­tions for con­sti­tu­tion­al rights and free­doms.

The Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, has main­tained that the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions frame­work is in­tend­ed to tar­get vi­o­lent crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and re­store safe­ty in af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties.