Alexander defends PM’s plan to limit special ops to UNC-controlled constituencies

KAY-MARIE FLETCH­ER

Se­nior Re­porter

kay-marie.fletch­[email protected]

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der has de­fend­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s plan to ex­clude Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM)-led con­stituen­cies from spe­cial op­er­a­tions, say­ing the Gov­ern­ment will cre­ate a “wall of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers” to keep crim­i­nals away from “good peo­ple” in com­mu­ni­ties where the mea­sures are im­ple­ment­ed.

Re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing the ex­clu­sive view­ing and de­vel­op­ment show­case of the Canopies at Cau­ra host­ed by Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said, “It’s like a wall of law en­force­ment of­fi­cers to pre­vent those who are law­less and com­mit­ting crime against our cit­i­zens, pre­vent them from com­ing in. So, we move them away from good peo­ple.”

Alexan­der al­so sug­gest­ed that res­i­dents of PNM-held con­stituen­cies who want spe­cial op­er­a­tions should chal­lenge their Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment (MPs), ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment will not force the crime-fight­ing mea­sures on com­mu­ni­ties whose rep­re­sen­ta­tives op­pose them.

His com­ments fol­low Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s an­nounce­ment that spe­cial op­er­a­tions would be con­cen­trat­ed in Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC)-con­trolled con­stituen­cies and lo­cal gov­ern­ment dis­tricts rather than PNM-con­trolled ar­eas.

Asked how that could work when the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion gov­erns the en­tire coun­try and PNM-held con­stituen­cies al­so con­tain peo­ple who sup­port the Gov­ern­ment and its crime-fight­ing strate­gies, Alexan­der said those res­i­dents should take the mat­ter up with their MPs.

He said, “Your rep­re­sen­ta­tives don’t want it. So you stand up against your rep­re­sen­ta­tives then, if that’s the case. You stand up against your rep­re­sen­ta­tive and say, ‘Lis­ten, we’re speak­ing for you be­cause you don’t live here. We want to speak for our­selves,’ and you’ll see the dif­fer­ence.”

Pressed on the Gov­ern­ment’s re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to cit­i­zens across all 41 con­stituen­cies, Alexan­der said it would not im­pose spe­cial op­er­a­tions on ar­eas whose rep­re­sen­ta­tives op­posed the mea­sures.

“If you don’t want some­thing, should we force it on you? You’re go­ing to the Par­lia­ment and say­ing, ‘My con­stituen­cy don’t want this.’ I am say­ing to you, we’ll give it to the con­stituen­cies that want it. And we will build a wall,” he said.

When asked how the leg­is­la­tion would dif­fer­en­ti­ate be­tween con­stituen­cies, Alexan­der said, “That will be de­ter­mined by the be­hav­iour of our cit­i­zens to­wards each oth­er.”

Re­spond­ing to crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion that the PM’s state­ment was a racist move, Alexan­der said, “The PNM don’t know what is racist. I can tell you that. To make that state­ment it sounds like it’s some­thing that they just wake up and said sud­den­ly.  I think dog was bark­ing when that hap­pened.”

Al­so de­fend­ing the PM’s move to re­strict spe­cial op­er­a­tions to UNC-led con­stituen­cies, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor and Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Hous­ing Phillip Alexan­der en­cour­aged res­i­dents of PNM-held con­stituen­cies who want the new mea­sures to chal­lenge their MPs and make their wish­es known.

He is now invit­ing res­i­dents of what he de­scribed as PNM “hotspot con­stituen­cies” to con­tact him, say­ing he would or­gan­ise a pe­ti­tion and take it to Per­sad-Bisses­sar once there was suf­fi­cient sup­port.

Speak­ing to me­dia out­side the Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Alexan­der said the Prime Min­is­ter was “ab­solute­ly cor­rect” to take the po­si­tion she did, ar­gu­ing that it coun­tered Op­po­si­tion claims about a po­lice state and apartheid.

Alexan­der said, “I think that she was ab­solute­ly cor­rect to take the po­si­tion that she took be­cause it out­ed that whole ‘sky is falling’ fire and po­lice-state non­sense and apartheid fool­ish­ness.

“All of that is gone now be­cause Trinida­di­ans are re­al­is­ing what the Prime Min­is­ter is try­ing to do is come and se­cure every­body and make sure every­body could have a safe, good qual­i­ty of life and the PNM that was mount­ing all of their rev­o­lu­tion to fight it, she said ok yall don’t want it; you don’t have to have it. So now the con­stituents in those con­stituen­cies have to turn and look at their Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and say But you can’t de­cide this for me. You didn’t con­sult us. We’re liv­ing un­der pres­sure. We’re liv­ing un­der fear, and you’re liv­ing in a gat­ed com­mu­ni­ty, and you have se­cu­ri­ty and blue lights.’”

Asked whether res­i­dents were be­ing made po­lit­i­cal foot­balls be­cause of where they live, Alexan­der re­ject­ed that sug­ges­tion.

He said, “She ac­tu­al­ly took the foot­ball out of the game. They want­ed to bring racist rhetoric, talk­ing about apartheid. She said, ‘OK, no­body’s forc­ing it on you.’”

He said res­i­dents would still re­ceive reg­u­lar polic­ing and oth­er na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ser­vices even if spe­cial op­er­a­tions were not con­duct­ed in their com­mu­ni­ties.