Government strengthens counter-terrorism strategy

Trinidad and To­ba­go’s counter-ter­ror­ism strat­e­gy is plac­ing greater em­pha­sis on fi­nan­cial over­sight, bor­der con­trols and in­ter-agency co­op­er­a­tion as Gov­ern­ment moves to im­ple­ment the 2025 Na­tion­al Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Strat­e­gy.

The sec­ond meet­ing of the In­ter-Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for Counter-Ter­ror­ism (IM­C­CT) on Wednes­day ex­am­ined the role of var­i­ous min­istries in the na­tion­al strat­e­gy, with Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo say­ing fi­nan­cial sys­tems are cen­tral to ef­forts to dis­rupt ter­ror­ist fi­nanc­ing and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to re­leas­es from the Min­istries of Fi­nance and De­fence, Tan­coo said mod­ern ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions and transna­tion­al crim­i­nal net­works re­ly on fi­nanc­ing, in­ter­na­tion­al trade and tech­nol­o­gy to op­er­ate, mak­ing the de­tec­tion and dis­rup­tion of il­lic­it fi­nan­cial ac­tiv­i­ty a key com­po­nent of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“Be­fore an at­tack is car­ried out, mon­ey must move, goods must cross bor­ders and il­lic­it pro­ceeds must be gen­er­at­ed and con­cealed. If we de­tect and dis­rupt those ac­tiv­i­ties ear­ly, we re­duce the abil­i­ty of crim­i­nal and ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions to op­er­ate,” he said.

Tan­coo said the Min­istry of Fi­nance is work­ing to strength­en fi­nan­cial in­tel­li­gence through the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, mod­ernise Cus­toms ad­min­is­tra­tion and im­prove col­lab­o­ra­tion with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners on bor­der se­cu­ri­ty and or­gan­ised crime.

The De­fence Min­istry said the meet­ing al­so ad­dressed the con­tri­bu­tion of oth­er port­fo­lios to the coun­try’s counter-ter­ror­ism ef­forts.

For­eign and CARI­COM Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers spoke about the role of re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships in im­prov­ing in­tel­li­gence shar­ing, in­sti­tu­tion­al re­silience, in­ter­op­er­abil­i­ty and the pro­tec­tion of crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture.

Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj ad­dressed the im­por­tance of le­gal and foren­sic sys­tems in sup­port­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions and pros­e­cu­tions re­lat­ed to ter­ror­ism of­fences. He re­ferred to mea­sures in­clud­ing the De­oxyri­bonu­cle­ic Acid (DNA) Act as part of the broad­er leg­isla­tive frame­work sup­port­ing law en­force­ment ef­forts.

De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge said the com­mit­tee al­so re­ceived op­er­a­tional up­dates on the im­ple­men­ta­tion of the Na­tion­al Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Strat­e­gy, leg­isla­tive and pol­i­cy mat­ters, bor­der se­cu­ri­ty, crit­i­cal in­fra­struc­ture pro­tec­tion and na­tion­al pre­pared­ness ex­er­cis­es.

The 2025 Na­tion­al Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Strat­e­gy is built around five pil­lars: Pre­ven­tion, Pro­tec­tion, Pre­pared­ness, Re­sponse and Re­cov­ery. It pro­vides a frame­work for co­or­di­na­tion among min­istries and agen­cies to ad­dress emerg­ing threats and im­prove na­tion­al re­silience