Heerah not opposed to Govt’s terror designation but urges caution

Shane Su­perville

Se­nior Re­porter

shane.su­[email protected]

Re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty ex­pert Dr Garvin Heer­ah says the des­ig­na­tion of Iran’s Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC), Lebanon’s Hezbol­lah and Hamas as ter­ror­ist groups would bode well for T&T’s se­cu­ri­ty sta­tus and ef­forts to pre­vent ter­ror fi­nanc­ing.

Heer­ah, how­ev­er, felt that any en­force­ment of poli­cies or leg­is­la­tion aimed at tack­ling the mi­gra­tion of ter­ror groups should be done with pre­ci­sion, clar­i­ty and fair­ness in mind.

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions on Mon­day, Heer­ah, a for­mer pro­fes­sor with the Eu­ro­pean Cen­tre for Se­cu­ri­ty Stud­ies in Ger­many on Counter Ter­ror­ism and Transna­tion­al Or­gan­ised Crime (TOC), said he was not op­posed to the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to cat­e­gorise these groups as ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions, but main­tained that ef­fec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing the growth of ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions should be bal­anced with re­spect to dif­fer­ent de­mo­graph­ics.

He, there­fore, felt that na­tion­al co­he­sion and build­ing the pub­lic’s sup­port should be used to un­der­pin wider an­ti-ter­ror ef­forts, to avoid mar­gin­al­is­ing any par­tic­u­lar group, as he warned that it is ir­re­spon­si­ble.

“It is crit­i­cal­ly im­por­tant to em­pha­sise that this des­ig­na­tion must nev­er be in­ter­pret­ed as a po­si­tion against Is­lam or the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

“The Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty has made sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tions to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment, in­clud­ing en­tre­pre­neur­ship and busi­ness lead­er­ship, in­vest­ment and eco­nom­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion, com­mu­ni­ty de­vel­op­ment and so­cial co­he­sion.

“Any at­tempt to con­flate ter­ror­ism with Is­lam is not on­ly in­ac­cu­rate but dan­ger­ous. Such nar­ra­tives risk alien­at­ing law-abid­ing cit­i­zens and un­der­min­ing the very part­ner­ships need­ed to com­bat ex­trem­ism.”

He not­ed that the Gov­ern­ment’s stance was proac­tive in treat­ing with glob­al threats, par­tic­u­lar­ly is­sues of ter­ror fi­nanc­ing.

In a state­ment on Tues­day, re­tired Lt Cm­dr Nor­man Din­di­al ques­tioned the le­gal ba­sis for such a des­ig­na­tion, not­ing that the IRGC was a le­git­i­mate army of Iran, a Unit­ed Na­tions mem­ber state.

How­ev­er, Heer­ah said that the IRGC op­er­ates as both a mil­i­tary and an ide­o­log­i­cal in­stru­ment of Iran, which he said projects in­flu­ence across dif­fer­ent re­gions.

When asked if such a des­ig­na­tion by the Gov­ern­ment to these or­gan­i­sa­tions, con­sid­er­ing their dis­tance to T&T, was nec­es­sary, Heer­ah said this would pro­vide a bar­ri­er against in­doc­tri­na­tion for lo­cals sym­pa­thet­ic to ex­trem­ist views.

“In to­day’s hy­per-con­nect­ed world, ide­ol­o­gy trav­els faster than peo­ple. Through so­cial me­dia plat­forms, en­crypt­ed com­mu­ni­ca­tions and di­as­po­ra link­ages, ex­trem­ist nar­ra­tives can reach vul­ner­a­ble in­di­vid­u­als any­where, in­clud­ing the Caribbean.

“The con­cern, there­fore, is not that these groups will es­tab­lish phys­i­cal strong­holds in Trinidad and To­ba­go, but that their ide­olo­gies may in­spire, in­flu­ence or rad­i­calise in­di­vid­u­als or small net­works lo­cal­ly.

“The Gov­ern­ment’s des­ig­na­tion sends a clear sig­nal—there is ze­ro tol­er­ance for the im­por­ta­tion or in­cu­ba­tion of vi­o­lent ex­trem­ist ide­olo­gies with­in our bor­ders.”

Heer­ah, how­ev­er, stressed that there was no ev­i­dence to sug­gest the pres­ence of ter­ror cells op­er­at­ing lo­cal­ly with ties to the IRGC, Hamas or Hezbol­lah, but said con­tin­ued in­tel­li­gence-led as­sess­ments must be done by lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.

“The con­cern lies in in­di­vid­u­als or mi­cro-net­works sym­pa­thet­ic to ex­trem­ist caus­es, on­line rad­i­cal­i­sa­tion pipelines tar­get­ing youth and the po­ten­tial use of lo­cal in­sti­tu­tions, know­ing­ly or un­know­ing­ly, to fa­cil­i­tate fundrais­ing or lo­gis­ti­cal sup­port,” he said.