Beckles questions top cop’s independence over protest restrictions

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les has ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of di­rect­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro to im­pose new protest re­stric­tions out of fear over grow­ing pub­lic dis­con­tent, while ques­tion­ing whether the coun­try’s top po­lice of­fi­cer is act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly.

Speak­ing at a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) meet­ing in Arou­ca on Thurs­day night, Beck­les sug­gest­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had pri­or knowl­edge of a new po­lice or­der es­tab­lish­ing 15 no-protest zones be­fore the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) for­mal­ly ex­plained the mea­sure.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader’s re­marks came amid con­tro­ver­sy over a le­gal no­tice signed by Gue­var­ro on May 27 cre­at­ing the re­strict­ed ar­eas, which re­quire demon­stra­tors to re­main at least 500 me­tres away from lo­ca­tions in­clud­ing Par­lia­ment, the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent, sev­er­al gov­ern­ment min­istries, and the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP).

The or­der was signed on the same day po­lice moved against pro­test­ers gath­ered near the DPP’s of­fice dur­ing demon­stra­tions linked to the Ka­ia Sealy mat­ter. How­ev­er, the new sched­ule bar­ring protests with­in 500 me­tres of that lo­ca­tion was not made pub­lic un­til May 28, prompt­ing crit­i­cism that the mea­sure was rushed in­to ef­fect to curb pub­lic demon­stra­tions.

Ad­dress­ing sup­port­ers, Beck­les ques­tioned the tim­ing of the mea­sure and the ex­pla­na­tions that fol­lowed.

“Yes­ter­day (Wednes­day) was the protest, and you all see what hap­pened. And to­day (Thurs­day), to­day the po­lice is now hav­ing a press con­fer­ence to ex­plain about it. You don’t find that kind of strange?” she asked.

She then raised con­cerns about ac­count­abil­i­ty with­in the po­lice ser­vice.

“So who re­al­ly guard­ing the guards? Who is guard­ing the guards?” Beck­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ar­gued that the re­stric­tions rep­re­sent­ed an un­prece­dent­ed lim­i­ta­tion on long-es­tab­lished forms of pub­lic demon­stra­tion.

Re­fer­ring to the le­gal no­tice, she told sup­port­ers, “This le­gal no­tice, where they want to fright­en you.”

Beck­les said cit­i­zens had tra­di­tion­al­ly ex­er­cised their right to protest out­side in­sti­tu­tions of state and po­lit­i­cal pow­er.

“In Trinidad and To­ba­go, we have grown ac­cus­tomed that when you crit­i­cise cer­tain things, there are cer­tain pieces of leg­is­la­tion that you don’t like. It has be­come cus­tom­ary for peo­ple to do the lit­tle march­ing by the Red House,” she said.

She not­ed that demon­stra­tions had his­tor­i­cal­ly tak­en place at oth­er of­fi­cial lo­ca­tions as well.

“As a mat­ter of fact, many of the trade unions, as you know, have gone to where the Prime Min­is­ter live in. Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre,” Beck­les said.

Us­ing re­cent bud­get de­bates as an ex­am­ple, she ar­gued that pub­lic demon­stra­tions have long formed part of the coun­try’s de­mo­c­ra­t­ic cul­ture.

“This re­cent bud­get that they had there, that they say is the best bud­get in the world. The fake bud­get. Peo­ple are ac­cus­tomed do­ing a protest,” she said.

Beck­les took par­tic­u­lar is­sue with Par­lia­ment be­ing in­clud­ed among the re­strict­ed lo­ca­tions.

“Here are the ar­eas you can­not protest. The Par­lia­ment. The Par­lia­ment. The nor­mal thing where you could walk, you can’t go by the Par­lia­ment. The Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent,” she said.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader sug­gest­ed the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions re­flect­ed anx­i­ety over pub­lic re­ac­tion to its poli­cies.

“This gov­ern­ment like they afraid of every­body?” she asked.

Re­fer­ring to Wednes­day’s po­lice re­sponse near the DPP’s of­fice, Beck­les said, “A lit­tle protest yes­ter­day (Wednes­day). And po­lice come out like rain.”

She ar­gued that the re­stric­tions ef­fec­tive­ly barred demon­stra­tions from the coun­try’s most vis­i­ble pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions.

“Be­cause what they re­al­ly telling you. Do not go back by the po­lice sta­tion. Don’t go by the par­lia­ment. Don’t go by the pres­i­dent. Don’t go by the prime min­is­ter. Don’t go nowhere,” she said.

Beck­les al­so linked the is­sue to the up­com­ing par­lia­men­tary de­bate on ex­tend­ing the cur­rent State of Emer­gency.

“And come two weeks. We will be back in the par­lia­ment. For the ex­ten­sion of a state of emer­gency,” she said.

She warned that the mea­sures sig­nalled a broad­er ero­sion of civ­il lib­er­ties.

“Be­cause this gov­ern­ment is now say­ing to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go, you re­al­ly have no free­dom,” Beck­les told sup­port­ers.

The Op­po­si­tion Leader al­so ad­mon­ished the Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er, ques­tion­ing whether the de­ci­sion orig­i­nat­ed with the TTPS or else­where.

“Is the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice act­ing in­de­pen­dent­ly?” she asked.

Beck­les then point­ed to com­ments made by the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­ing the re­stric­tions be­fore the po­lice pub­licly ad­dressed the is­sue.

“Be­cause if it is that the prime min­is­ter had ac­cess to this no­tice be­fore the po­lice was able to come and dis­cuss it with the pub­lic, then you know who re­al­ly in charge. Is not the com­mis­sion­er of po­lice,” she said.

Beck­les re­it­er­at­ed that the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion is fear­ful of pub­lic scruti­ny and urged sup­port­ers to pay close at­ten­tion to de­vel­op­ments.