President calls out Volunteer Defence Force for SOE support

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has called out 100 mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Vol­un­teer De­fence Force to sup­port se­cu­ri­ty op­er­a­tions dur­ing the on­go­ing state of pub­lic emer­gency.

The procla­ma­tion, pub­lished in Le­gal No­tice No. 508 and is­sued un­der sec­tion 238(1) of the De­fence Act, Chap. 14:01, au­tho­ris­es the de­ploy­ment for 77 days, from to­day, 3rd Ju­ly, 2026, to 17th Sep­tem­ber, 2026.

Ac­cord­ing to the procla­ma­tion, the de­ploy­ment will strength­en the ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force to pro­vide op­er­a­tional sup­port to the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice in its ef­forts to main­tain a safe and se­cure en­vi­ron­ment dur­ing the state of pub­lic emer­gency pro­claimed on 3rd March, 2026.

Sec­tion 238(1) of the De­fence Act al­lows the Pres­i­dent to call out the Vol­un­teer De­fence Force, or any por­tion of it, for ac­tu­al mil­i­tary ser­vice in aid of the civ­il pow­er where a ri­ot, dis­tur­bance of the peace or oth­er emer­gency oc­curs, or is an­tic­i­pat­ed, and is con­sid­ered to be be­yond the pow­ers of the civ­il au­thor­i­ties to sup­press, pre­vent or oth­er­wise deal with.

The procla­ma­tion says Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo con­sid­ered it nec­es­sary to call out the ad­di­tion­al per­son­nel to strength­en the op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force in sup­port of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.