House uproar as Alexander fails to answer query on kidnapping

Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Up­roar broke out in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives yes­ter­day af­ter the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) ac­cused Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der of fail­ing to an­swer ques­tions on se­cu­ri­ty fol­low­ing the re­cent kid­nap­ping of Monos Is­land res­i­dents Der­rick and Clari­bel Tardieu.

Alexan­der had been asked by PNM Diego Mar­tin West MP Hans Des Vi­gnes what im­me­di­ate mea­sures had been im­ple­ment­ed to safe­guard the pub­lic and pre­vent kid­nap­pings, giv­en the re­cent kid­nap­ping of the two cit­i­zens on Monos Is­land.

Well-known busi­ness­man Der­rick “Stones” Tardieu and his wife Clari­bel, who live on Monos Is­land, were kid­napped last Sat­ur­day. A US$2.5 mil­lion ran­som was de­mand­ed.

Tardieu, 70, is not in good health. A video, which was cir­cu­lat­ed, showed him—with a ri­fle to his head and some­one’s hand hold­ing a grenade next to him—cry­ing out in dis­tressed tones to his broth­er, Robert Tardieu, to as­sist in the sit­u­a­tion.

Yes­ter­day, Guardian Me­dia was told that noth­ing has been re­solved re­gard­ing pay­ment of the ran­som, and work con­tin­ues on the is­sue to­day.

Des Vi­gnes, who posed the mat­ter as an ur­gent ques­tion on the House agen­da to Alexan­der, is the MP for the area where the cou­ple lives on Monos Is­land. An ur­gent ques­tion sim­i­lar to Des Vi­gnes’ was posed by Op­po­si­tion Sen­ate leader Dr Amery Browne for Alexan­der to an­swer in the Sen­ate.

In the House, Alexan­der told Des Vi­gnes in re­ply to his ques­tion that “The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice, who has a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect and serve with pride, at this time, they are co-or­di­nat­ing op­er­a­tions with the T&T Coast Guard in spe­cif­ic ar­eas con­sid­ered vul­ner­a­ble, and as a re­sult of that, their in­ten­tions are to pro­tect the cit­i­zens in and around those ar­eas con­sid­ered vul­ner­a­ble, but al­so, yeah (sic), it in­cludes to safe­guard the pub­lic of T&T and to pre­vent fur­ther in­ci­dents of that na­ture.”

Alexan­der con­tin­ued, “Al­so, my col­leagues on the oth­er side, Arou­ca/Lopinot, Port-of-Spain South, they should have known they left the T&T...” Alexan­der added, be­fore be­ing cut off by PNM protests.

“I ob­ject! Up to now you ain’t an­swer the ques­tion!” de­clared PNM MP Kei­th Scot­land to Alexan­der.

The Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion sides both protest­ed as House Speak­er Jagdeo Singh said, “I’m stand­ing by, al­low­ing all of you all to in­dulge in this glo­ri­fied ju­ve­nile be­hav­iour in the pres­ence of Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans from across the Com­mon­wealth.”

Singh added to Alexan­der, “Min­is­ter, could you just stick to an an­swer and leave out the un­nec­es­sary hy­per­bole?”

How­ev­er, the two-minute time pe­ri­od for re­ply­ing to that ques­tion end­ed.