Gonzales, Griffith tell Govt: Don’t bash social media just communicate better

JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

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For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter and po­lice com­mis­sion­er Gary Grif­fith is call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment, and more specif­i­cal­ly Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der, to im­prove com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the pub­lic.

In a Face­book post yes­ter­day, Grif­fith dis­cred­it­ed a com­ment made by Alexan­der, who claimed that so­cial me­dia mis­in­for­ma­tion trig­gered wide­spread pan­ic last Fri­day af­ter an in­ter­na­tion­al news re­port sug­gest­ed that the Unit­ed States was poised to be­gin land strikes in Venezuela. This was com­pound­ed by the De­fence Force call­ing out all its mem­bers to bases across the coun­try and the po­lice ser­vice re­call­ing all of­fi­cers from leave.

In an in­ter­view on Sun­day, Alexan­der said his role was not to dis­pel so­cial me­dia claims. He said the Gov­ern­ment should not have to hold a press con­fer­ence to ad­dress every ru­mour and even urged cit­i­zens to be in­de­pen­dent thinkers.

“I think peo­ple ought to be more re­spon­si­ble, and not every­thing that the so­cial me­dia says, I think I, as the min­is­ter, I have to come out and cor­rect it. So the sky is go­ing to fall this evening, the so­cial me­dia said; ‘Trinidad and To­ba­go, we just want you to know that we have no in­for­ma­tion at all that the sky is go­ing to fall.’ A train is go­ing to pass through Trinidad and To­ba­go this evening, at six. ‘Trinidad and To­ba­go, we just want to in­form you that no train’... You think that is cre­at­ed mem­bers of the pub­lic, right? That makes log­i­cal sense?” asked the min­is­ter.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith said the Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter’s as­ser­tion that the pub­lic has no right to lis­ten to or take note of in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia is deeply mis­guid­ed. He added that it demon­strates a fun­da­men­tal mis­un­der­stand­ing of how mod­ern com­mu­ni­ca­tion and pub­lic sen­ti­ment op­er­ate.

“The ap­pro­pri­ate re­sponse from the State should have been proac­tive in com­mu­ni­ca­tion and re­as­sur­ance—not si­lence. And to com­pound mat­ters, your re­sponse in the af­ter­math seems to be one of ridicule of the pub­lic’s jus­ti­fied con­cerns and re­ac­tions. Min­is­ter Alexan­der, the role of lead­er­ship in se­cu­ri­ty is not mere­ly to re­duce crime sta­tis­tics. It is al­so to re­duce the fear of crime.”

An­oth­er for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter al­so weighed in on Alexan­der’s re­sponse.

Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to ad­dress the peo­ple.

Speak­ing on the Morn­ing Brew pro­gramme yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les said the po­si­tion tak­en by Alexan­der re­gard­ing so­cial me­dia seems at odds with what his leader and Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar as­sert­ed while she led the then op­po­si­tion.

“When I heard him say­ing that yes­ter­day (Sun­day), you know, I was tak­en aback but not sur­prised be­cause the UNC utilised so­cial me­dia, es­pe­cial­ly when they were in op­po­si­tion, and even more so now, to spew mis­in­for­ma­tion and dis­in­for­ma­tion in­to the pub­lic. So, they will say one thing when it is con­ve­nient to them and they will say some­thing else when, of course, it is con­ve­nient to them.”

Gon­za­les said that where there is a lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion, there is al­so a lack of lead­er­ship.

“There’s a se­ri­ous vac­u­um of in­for­ma­tion in Trinidad and To­ba­go and with it, a vac­u­um of lead­er­ship. When I made my con­tri­bu­tion in the SoE de­bate on Fri­day, I told the Gov­ern­ment that you are not speak­ing to the pop­u­la­tion. You are in­vok­ing Stand­ing Or­ders in or­der to evade hold­ing your­self to ac­count, and you are not speak­ing clear­ly to the peo­ple. There­fore, when you don’t speak and you don’t take the peo­ple in­to your con­fi­dence, they have to re­ly on oth­er sources for their in­for­ma­tion.”

Gon­za­les claimed mis­com­mu­ni­ca­tion was al­so ev­i­dent in what he de­scribed as the Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to ex­plain why the State of Emer­gency was ex­tend­ed for an­oth­er three months.

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie, who pi­lot­ed the mo­tion, in­sist­ed the SoE re­mains a crit­i­cal na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty in­stru­ment to sup­port ac­tive op­er­a­tions tar­get­ing crim­i­nal gangs and or­gan­ised crime net­works.

He stressed that the mea­sure was nev­er in­tend­ed to serve as the Gov­ern­ment’s crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, but rather as a tem­po­rary plat­form en­abling law en­force­ment agen­cies to ex­e­cute sen­si­tive and on­go­ing tac­ti­cal ini­tia­tives.