A national security reset

Our na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ap­pa­ra­tus faced se­ri­ous chal­lenges un­der the last ad­min­is­tra­tion. There was nev­er a dull mo­ment — ris­ing crime was ac­com­pa­nied by a dra­mat­ic and pub­lic stand­off be­tween a for­mer prime min­is­ter and a for­mer com­mis­sion­er of po­lice. This was fol­lowed by the ar­rest of yet an­oth­er for­mer CoP. Al­le­ga­tions sur­faced of a “Chris­t­ian grab for pow­er” and “hit squads” op­er­at­ing with­in the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA), lead­ing to the re­moval of its di­rec­tor and sev­er­al of­fi­cials. SORT was dis­band­ed and its top of­fi­cers were sus­pend­ed.

All of this un­fold­ed while cit­i­zens were be­ing slaugh­tered in their homes and on the streets, and crim­i­nals ap­peared to have free rein. The im­plo­sion of lead­er­ship and dys­func­tion at the high­est lev­els made it clear to many vot­ers that na­tion­al re­set was need­ed. Peo­ple vot­ed for new lead­er­ship — in­di­vid­u­als who could not on­ly de­liv­er re­sults but give them a sense of se­cu­ri­ty and hope.

En­ter Roger Alexan­der, our new Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty. Known from the TV pro­gramme Be­yond the Tape, Alexan­der brought his unique brand of street-lev­el hon­esty, vis­i­bil­i­ty and lived ex­pe­ri­ence in­to the po­lit­i­cal are­na.

On May 31, Si­mon Wright wrote: “Alexan­der is not just a for­mer po­lice of­fi­cer or TV per­son­al­i­ty; he is a sym­bol of tough talk, com­mu­ni­ty aware­ness, and a street-lev­el un­der­stand­ing of the is­sues that mat­ter. He speaks in the lan­guage of the peo­ple — di­rect, pas­sion­ate, and un­fil­tered. In a time when vot­ers are in­creas­ing­ly tired of pol­ished ca­reer politi­cians and emp­ty rhetoric, his au­then­tic­i­ty may be his great­est as­set.”

Yet, not every­one wel­comed him. I was dis­ap­point­ed when MP Mar­vin Gon­za­les pub­licly called Alexan­der a “dunce,” crit­i­cis­ing his maid­en speech and sug­gest­ing his read­ing skills were an em­bar­rass­ment to the lega­cy of Dr Er­ic Williams. He even im­plied that PNM’s in­vest­ment in ed­u­ca­tion had failed by pro­duc­ing some­one like Alexan­der.

But per­haps Gon­za­les couldn’t help him­self — his po­lit­i­cal icon, Dr Williams, was no stranger to harsh lan­guage. He once la­belled the T&T Guardian news­pa­per “the jamette of St Vin­cent Street,” called his MPs “cra­pauds,” re­ferred to Dr. Hol­lis Liv­er­pool as “a jack­ass,” and fa­mous­ly told cit­i­zens out­raged by his Home Af­fairs Min­is­ter who walked in­to a po­lice sta­tion and freed a rel­a­tive, “to get the hell out of here.”

Gon­za­les, who some say has lead­er­ship po­ten­tial, would do well to em­u­late some­one like Op­po­si­tion Leader Pene­lope Beck­les, who has con­sis­tent­ly con­duct­ed her­self with dig­ni­ty and grace. As Parama­hansa Yo­ganan­da once said, “Some peo­ple try to be tall by cut­ting off the heads of oth­ers.”

Min­is­ter Alexan­der, in turn, used the op­por­tu­ni­ty to up­lift oth­ers, en­cour­ag­ing the na­tion’s youth not to be dis­cour­aged if they are mocked while learn­ing some­thing new.

An­oth­er ma­jor fig­ure in this na­tion­al re­set is Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Al­lis­ter Gue­var­ro. While we made his­to­ry by ap­point­ing our first fe­male CoP, Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher, her ap­point­ment puz­zled many. Nom­i­nat­ed just three months be­fore re­tire­ment and twice grant­ed ex­ten­sions, this led per­sons to claim she was be­hold­en to the then-ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Thank­ful­ly, this time the process was clean­er. The Po­lice Ser­vice Com­mis­sion (PolSC) pro­vid­ed its list of can­di­dates with­out con­tro­ver­sy or po­lit­i­cal med­dling (no se­cret meet­ing). The Gov­ern­ment ac­cept­ed their rec­om­men­da­tion, ful­fill­ing a cam­paign promise to ap­point a sub­stan­tive CoP. Gue­var­ro, at 49, is set to serve an 11-year term.

Among his ear­ly chal­lenges is the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to DCP Suzette Mar­tin, prompt­ed by a com­plaint from firearms deal­er Brent Thomas, who was ex­tract­ed from Bar­ba­dos by our po­lice. A High Court judge sup­port­ed Thomas’ claim. For­mer CoP Gary Grif­fith stat­ed that no po­lice of­fi­cer could leave T&T with­out au­tho­ri­sa­tion from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty. He dis­missed Mar­tin as “a small fish in the dance,” and de­mand­ed more an­swers.

Pub­lic trust in the po­lice must be re­stored. Cit­i­zens need to be­lieve the ser­vice op­er­ates with­out po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence. It’s worth not­ing that Mar­tin al­so played a key role in the ar­rest of then-CoP Hare­wood-Christo­pher — a case that lat­er col­lapsed due to lack of ev­i­dence.

Com­mis­sion­er Gue­var­ro em­pha­sised the need for trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty. He con­firmed that the find­ings of the Mar­tin in­ves­ti­ga­tion will be sent to the PolSC, which un­der Sec­tion 123 of the Con­sti­tu­tion holds the sole au­thor­i­ty to act if nec­es­sary. He al­so high­light­ed the im­por­tance of ef­fec­tive polic­ing strate­gies and par­ent­ing in ad­dress­ing crime.

“It is time that the Po­lice Ser­vice and the of­fi­cers who are mem­bers of this aus­pi­cious and es­teemed body re­turned to be­ing role mod­els of so­ci­ety… It is about time we re­turn to be­ing su­per­heroes,” he said.

As a young boy on school ca­reer day, Gue­var­ro de­clared he want­ed to be CoP. He’s achieved that dream. Now, we hope he helps our cit­i­zens re­alise theirs: a safer T&T.

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