TRINIDAD-Opposition calls for end to state of emergency.

PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad, CMC -The chairman of the main opposition People’s National Movement (PNM), Marvin Gonzales, on Monday called on the Trinidad and Tobago government to end the current state of emergency (SoE), saying it has not achieved its objective.

The Kamla Persad-Bissessar government has, in the past, defended the imposition of yet another SoE, less than two months after a similar measure had been in place for more than a year.

The government says it had no choice and was not willing to allow the country to return to the position it had been in before the United National Congress (UNC)-led coalition’s election victory in April last year.

In a post on his Facebook page directed at the prime minister, Gonzales, who is also the leader of the Opposition Business in Parliament, said that the “state of emergency is clearly not working.

“This state of emergency gives your administration more power than ZOSO (Zones of Special Operations) ever proposed. More detention powers, more restrictions, and control. And still crime is out of control.”

Gonzales said murders were increasing, resulting in fear among the population, and that communities remain vulnerable.

“So what exactly is happening here, Prime Minister? Because what we are seeing is not leadership. It is a government hiding behind power with nothing to show for it.

“Emergency powers were never meant to replace strategy, never meant to replace policing and security, intelligence and community work,” Gonzales told Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, adding that the SoE is no longer about national security.

He is calling on the government to implement proper crime-fighting strategies and end the SOE, adding that the measures within the SOE are being used “to control and suppress and threaten bloggers, content creators who dare criticize your government?

“Is it meant to keep the public in line to avoid mass protests against an unpopular regime? Is it meant to avoid the rule of law to lock up citizens without bail and without established constitutional protection? Is it meant to target opposition politicians and those who dare stand up and speak out?

“Prime Minister, the people of this country deserve answers,” Gonzales added.

So far this year, there have been at least 81 murders. Last year, the country recorded 369 murders, a 42 percent decline from the 626 recorded in 2024.

Meanwhile, the leader of the Black Agenda Project, Dr. David Muhammad, says the SoE is not the solution to the crime problem facing Trinidad and Tobago.

Muhammad, speaking on a television program here on Tuesday, said that SoE cannot be a crime-fighting initiative and that preventive measures would be more effective.

“I have never seen a state of emergency as a solution to crime. It is the police’s job to carry out these kinds of programs. However, I don’t think it is the job of non-national security-based agencies to believe that the solution to the crime problem is crime-fighting at the finality of its occurrence.

“Preventative measures, I think, are by far much more of a solution, which goes back to the idea of education and training. And that, to me, has contributed towards Trinidad and Tobago’s continued downward spiral in the crime problem.”

Muhammad told television viewers that a state of emergency can be only “one small component” in a much broader effort to fight crime.

He said youth-based initiatives, including education, jobs, and sports, must be given priority.

“So for as long as we’re not paying attention to employment, to educational institutions, to sporting opportunities for young people and a whole kind of functionalist networking of different agencies and institutions to look after youth in particular, then the optics of a state of emergency will come across as failing simply because we have neglected other aspects of society that need attention,” he added.