PM warns of another SoE if threats return

Ryan Ba­choo

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has warned that she will not hes­i­tate to de­clare an­oth­er State of Emer­gency (SoE) if se­ri­ous threats to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens re-emerge.

The SoE end­ed on Thurs­day at mid­night.

Her warn­ing came af­ter the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives passed the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill ear­ly this morn­ing, with Per­sad-Bisses­sar say­ing the leg­is­la­tion would next be con­sid­ered by the Sen­ate.

The Prime Min­is­ter said the re­cent­ly con­clud­ed SoE had re­sult­ed in 3,552 peo­ple be­ing charged, which she de­scribed as a high­ly suc­cess­ful op­er­a­tion.

She said the pas­sage of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill would pro­vide an­oth­er mech­a­nism to deal with threats to na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty, but stressed that her Gov­ern­ment would be pre­pared to in­voke emer­gency pow­ers if nec­es­sary.

“How­ev­er, if se­ri­ous threats to the safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty of cit­i­zens re-emerge, I will not hes­i­tate to put the coun­try un­der an­oth­er SoE,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so is­sued a di­rect warn­ing to crim­i­nal gangs and the il­le­gal drug trade, say­ing those in­volved in vi­o­lent crime could again face de­ten­tion at fa­cil­i­ties in­clud­ing Teteron and the Max­i­mum Se­cu­ri­ty Prison (MSP).

“I want the lo­cal drug mafia and the vi­o­lent gangs to un­der­stand clear­ly that the cells at Teteron and MSP await again if you con­tin­ue your crim­i­nal be­hav­iour,” she said.

She ac­cused crim­i­nal el­e­ments of hav­ing “tor­tured and ter­rorised” law-abid­ing cit­i­zens for decades and said this sit­u­a­tion must end.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so crit­i­cised the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), along with un­named com­men­ta­tors and groups, ac­cus­ing them of op­pos­ing mea­sures in­tend­ed to tack­le crime.

She al­leged that these groups want­ed “a crim­i­nal state” and ac­cused them of act­ing as “mouth­pieces for drug traf­fick­ers and crim­i­nals”.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said com­mu­ni­ties, in­clud­ing West­moor­ings, Fed­er­a­tion Park and St Clair, were be­ing af­fect­ed by gangs and il­le­gal drugs and guns.

She main­tained that law-abid­ing cit­i­zens sup­port­ed the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill and were not con­cerned about crit­i­cism of the leg­is­la­tion from what she de­scribed as crim­i­nal in­ter­ests and their sup­port­ers.

The leg­is­la­tion was passed in the House fol­low­ing de­bate over the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed frame­work for spe­cial op­er­a­tions to ad­dress se­ri­ous threats to pub­lic safe­ty.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said her ad­min­is­tra­tion would con­tin­ue to act in what it con­sid­ers to be the best in­ter­ests of cit­i­zens.

“My Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to work in the best in­ter­ests of our cit­i­zens,” she said.