Police Service launches Diplomatic Security Unit

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) on Fri­day launched its Diplo­mat­ic Se­cu­ri­ty Unit, which Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro says is about demon­strat­ing to the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty that the coun­try ho­n­ours its oblig­a­tions un­der the Vi­en­na Con­ven­tion.

CoP Gue­var­ro told the cer­e­mo­ny that Trinidad and To­ba­go al­so re­spects the “in­vi­o­la­bil­i­ty of diplo­mat­ic mis­sions, and val­ues the re­la­tion­ships that diplo­ma­cy makes pos­si­ble.

He said that the unit’s func­tions will in­clude man­ag­ing protests demon­stra­tions to bal­ance free ex­pres­sion with the du­ty to pro­tect mis­sions.

“Co­op­er­a­tion on sen­si­tive mat­ters with for­eign gov­ern­ment and lo­cal agen­cies. Li­ai­son with con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty providers to en­sure seam­less co­or­di­na­tion be­tween pri­vate and pub­lic se­cu­ri­ty,” he said, in ad­di­tion to con­duct­ing pa­trols and se­cu­ri­ty checks around em­bassies, high com­mis­sions, and con­sulates.

It will serve as a rapid re­sponse unit “to emer­gen­cies af­fect­ing diplo­mat­ic staff and premis­es” as well as mon­i­tor­ing com­pli­ance with in­ter­na­tion­al con­ven­tions and na­tion­al laws.

CoP Gue­var­ro said the unit al­so will have ac­cess to in­tel­li­gence through the spe­cial branch, “en­sur­ing threats are iden­ti­fied and neu­tralised ac­cord­ing­ly”.

He said the re­cent in­tro­duc­tion of diplo­mat­ic plates fur­ther strength­ens this frame­work, “en­sur­ing that clear iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of diplo­mat­ic ve­hi­cles at­tached to mis­sions and en­hanc­ing pro­tec­tive mea­sures.”

“Over the decades, we have wit­nessed nu­mer­ous protest demon­stra­tions out­side of mis­sions,” he not­ed. “Mo­ments of ten­sion re­quir­ing del­i­cate ne­go­ti­a­tion and sit­u­a­tions de­mand­ing ab­solute co­op­er­a­tion be­tween the po­lice, diplo­mats, and con­tract­ed se­cu­ri­ty providers.

“But the diplo­mat­ic se­cu­ri­ty unit is de­signed to meet these chal­lenges head-on with pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­spect for sov­er­eign­ty,” CoP Gue­var­ro said, adding that “this unit is not on­ly about en­force­ment, it is about trust.”

Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Roger Alexan­der said the po­lice are “go­ing through a hard time at this time, with re­spect to in­tegri­ty, as per­sons are try­ing to dis­play that your in­tegri­ty is in ques­tion.”

“How­ev­er, keep the fight, con­tin­ue do­ing your du­ties,” he en­cour­aged po­lice of­fi­cers. “In­tegri­ty is not for sale. Per­sons were born so they will have to take it away from you by any means nec­es­sary. Every op­er­a­tion, every pa­trol, every pro­tect­ed life, every se­cure com­mu­ni­ty, it all mat­ters.”

“To our diplo­mat­ic com­mu­ni­ty, let us re­as­sure you, the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go re­mains com­mit­ted to your safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty,” Alexan­der told the cer­e­mo­ny, which was al­so at­tend­ed by CARI­COM and For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers. —PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC)