PM defends second State of Emergency

Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­[email protected]

As cit­i­zens once again face the sus­pen­sion of cer­tain con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, an un­apolo­getic Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made it clear she will con­tin­ue to use States of Emer­gency as a crime-fight­ing tool, in­sist­ing she would rather act de­ci­sive­ly to pro­tect lives than stand by as crim­i­nals ter­rorise the pop­u­la­tion.

The sec­ond State of Emer­gency un­der the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress ad­min­is­tra­tion took ef­fect at mid­night yes­ter­day (March 3). This means that since as­sum­ing of­fice on April 28, 2025, the Gov­ern­ment has kept the coun­try un­der emer­gency pow­ers for near­ly sev­en of its ten months in of­fice. Trinidad and To­ba­go has been free of a SoE on­ly dur­ing May and June 2025, and again in Feb­ru­ary 2026.

News of the lat­est SoE was is­sued via a writ­ten state­ment from the Prime Min­is­ter short­ly be­fore 4 am yes­ter­day.

In the state­ment, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the SoE was de­clared af­ter in­tel­li­gence re­ports re­vealed a spike in gang-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence, mass shoot­ings and cred­i­ble threats against se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel. She added that the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil (NSC) ad­vised Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo to act, cit­ing es­ca­lat­ing reprisals and risks to pub­lic safe­ty fol­low­ing the end of the pre­vi­ous SoE in Jan­u­ary.

But Per­sad-Bisses­sar was a no­table ab­sen­tee from the Gov­ern­ment’s tele­vised ad­dress to the na­tion hours lat­er. In­stead, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al John Je­re­mie led the team, flanked by Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der and Jus­tice Min­is­ter De­vesh Ma­haraj. Mem­bers of the me­dia were not in­vit­ed to the event.

Guardian Me­dia sought re­spons­es from Per­sad-Bisses­sar via What­sApp.

Asked to re­spond to crit­i­cisms that an­oth­er SoE amounts to an ad­mis­sion her Gov­ern­ment was un­able to ef­fec­tive­ly ad­dress crime with­out sus­pend­ing cer­tain con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, the PM said, “I don’t have to de­fend call­ing an SoE to pro­tect law-abid­ing cit­i­zens. The PNM mot­to was who dead dead and who live live, so I am un­both­ered by their two cents. There was an op­tion for the ZOSOs (Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions) which was re­ject­ed de­spite it be­ing a much-di­lut­ed ver­sion of the pow­ers in an SoE. The SoE is a tool and I will use it. I’m not go­ing to wait for 5,000 peo­ple to be mur­dered be­fore I utilise it.”

Asked to re­spond to al­le­ga­tions that her ad­min­is­tra­tion is us­ing SoEs to sti­fle protests and re­strict free speech, she said, “PNM politi­cians are free to speak as much dumb things as they want, a right that they have pro­fuse­ly ac­cept­ed all day to­day. That’s a pret­ty des­per­ate ac­cu­sa­tion from peo­ple who are sup­port­ing dic­ta­tor­ships in Venezuela, Iran and Cu­ba. Al­so, I’ve re­peat­ed­ly said peo­ple are free to mash up and burn down the place if they want.”

But with an SoE be­ing in ef­fect for sev­en of the last 10 months, Guardian Me­dia asked if the Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­min­is­tra­tion in­tends to gov­ern un­der these cir­cum­stances for the rest of her elect­ed term.

The PM sim­ply said, “I will utilise an SoE when­ev­er it’s need­ed.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so clar­i­fied that the de­c­la­ra­tion has noth­ing to do with war in the Mid­dle East ini­ti­at­ed by the Unit­ed States and Iran against Iraq.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so de­fend­ed her ab­sence from the ad­dress to the na­tion an­nounc­ing the SoE yes­ter­day.

“I don’t see any is­sue with the an­nounce­ment. It was rou­tine.”

This, how­ev­er, marks a sig­nif­i­cant shift from her stance in De­cem­ber 2024, when she crit­i­cised then prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, call­ing him a “cow­ard” for not at­tend­ing the me­dia brief­ing fol­low­ing the de­c­la­ra­tion of a SoE un­der the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Asked if the ZOSO Bill, which was de­feat­ed in the Sen­ate, will be tak­en back to Par­lia­ment fol­low­ing the ex­pi­ra­tion of this lat­est SoE, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, “We al­ready of­fered the much milder ZOSOs as an al­ter­na­tive to the SoE. The bootlick­er Pres­i­dent Sen­a­tors and PNM re­fused it. Hope­ful­ly, soon they will re­alise that they out­smart­ed them­selves. They too ‘bwight’.”

She said her mes­sage to the na­tion at this time was, “If you are a law-abid­ing cit­i­zen, please go about your busi­ness as usu­al. The on­ly per­sons who should wor­ry are the crim­i­nals and their friends and fam­i­lies who aid them in their crim­i­nal­i­ty. They were warned about their be­hav­iour but chose to ig­nore good ad­vice. For ten years, the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment al­lowed crim­i­nals free rein so the lo­cal drug mafia could flood the coun­try with il­le­gal drugs. My Gov­ern­ment will not al­low that to con­tin­ue. The rights, safe­ty and hap­pi­ness of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens will al­ways be my pri­or­i­ty.”

Mean­while, in a post to X, the Prime Min­is­ter said SoEs are not a Band-Aid on crime.

“They are trig­gered by cred­i­ble in­tel­li­gence of threats to our na­tion. Crim­i­nals will not hold Trinidad and To­ba­go to ran­som. They will not dic­tate terms to those in au­thor­i­ty, and they will not over­pow­er law-abid­ing cit­i­zens,” she wrote.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said she was not afraid to take tough de­ci­sions in de­fence of law-abid­ing cit­i­zens.

She al­so men­tioned her up­com­ing sum­mit with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump at the first Shield of the Amer­i­c­as on March 7 in Flori­da. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said one of her goals at the sum­mit will be to strength­en na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty fur­ther.

“Trinidad and To­ba­go now has an in­vite at the ta­ble where in­ter­na­tion­al and re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty is be­ing ad­dressed. I will con­tin­ue to seek fur­ther co­op­er­a­tion and as­sis­tance to en­sure that gangs and or­gan­ised crim­i­nal net­works are erad­i­cat­ed from our coun­try. We will not sur­ren­der this na­tion. We will not re­treat. We will re­store law, or­der and safe­ty - and we will do so with­out fear or favour!”