Opposition slams Govt over terror listings

DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­[email protected]

For­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les has crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of its de­ci­sion to des­ig­nate three Mid­dle East­ern or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties, fol­low­ing a High Court or­der freez­ing prop­er­ty linked to the groups un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go’s An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act.

The or­der, pub­lished in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Gazette on Mon­day, ap­plies to Hezbol­lah, Hamas and the Is­lam­ic Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Guard Corps (IRGC), and rep­re­sents one of the most ex­ten­sive us­es of the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Act in re­cent years.

The court di­rec­tive ef­fec­tive­ly freezes all lo­cal as­sets as­so­ci­at­ed with the des­ig­nat­ed en­ti­ties, sig­nalling a sig­nif­i­cant es­ca­la­tion in the coun­try’s ap­pli­ca­tion of counter-ter­ror­ism mea­sures.

But Gon­za­les has ques­tioned both the process and the com­mu­ni­ca­tion sur­round­ing the de­ci­sion.

“My con­cern, again, is the fact that the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to en­gage in a pat­tern of be­hav­iour where they don’t re­spect the peo­ple of the coun­try and don’t com­mu­ni­cate with them in the way that they’re sup­posed to be com­mu­ni­cat­ed.”

He added that the pub­lic should not have first learned of the de­vel­op­ment through of­fi­cial pub­li­ca­tion.

“The peo­ple of this coun­try should not have been learn­ing about this in the Gazette. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, the Min­is­ter of De­fence, the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the Prime Min­is­ter, they could have come out and spo­ken to the pop­u­la­tion on this very im­por­tant mat­ter with­out jeop­ar­dis­ing and un­der­min­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty. But it is a pat­tern of be­hav­iour in this gov­ern­ment, and it is very un­for­tu­nate.”

For­mer min­is­ter in the min­istry of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Kei­th Scot­land has al­so raised con­cerns, par­tic­u­lar­ly around the lack of en­gage­ment with af­fect­ed com­mu­ni­ties pri­or to the de­ci­sion.

“The lack of pri­or con­sul­ta­tion with the groups that are af­fect­ed is a cause for pro­ce­dur­al and gen­uine con­cern on my part.”

In yes­ter­day’s Par­lia­ment ses­sion, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar was asked by PNM MP Hans Des Vi­gnes what mea­sures are be­ing tak­en by the Gov­ern­ment to pro­tect busi­ness­es, in light of es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East, af­fect­ing the Strait of Hor­muz.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Trinidad and To­ba­go con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East and the cur­rent is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with the Strait of Hor­muz.

“Our Gov­ern­ment of T&T is con­tin­u­ing to work with in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners by pro­vid­ing diplo­mat­ic sup­port for the un­fet­tered free­dom of nav­i­ga­tion through the Strait.

“Fur­ther, in the last week, T&T par­tic­i­pat­ed twice in in­ter­na­tion­al fo­ra or­gan­ised by the Unit­ed King­dom and France to dis­cuss is­sues as­so­ci­at­ed with the clo­sure of the Strait and as­sist in pro­vid­ing so­lu­tions. These en­gage­ments aligned with T&T’s con­sis­tent en­gage­ment with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca with re­spect to mat­ters such as these.”

She added, “Do­mes­ti­cal­ly, the Gov­ern­ment of T&T has been in dis­cus­sions with the pri­vate sec­tor to mon­i­tor and mit­i­gate any eco­nom­ic im­pacts from these ten­sions in the Mid­dle East.”

The Prime Min­is­ter did not de­tail T&T’s po­si­tion at the in­ter­na­tion­al fo­rum or­gan­ised by the UK and France, or what T&T’s po­si­tion was, in­clud­ing on so­lu­tions.