It is worrying and mystifying to witness how willingly Trinbagonian people have relinquished their rights as citizens. A State of Emergency has been called on what basis? Only two times before has a State of Emergency been called in Trinidad and Tobago (since independence) and such was under extreme circumstances consisting of armed conflict. The Constitution states that "A Proclamation made by the President under subsection (1) shall not be effective unless it contains a declaration that the President is satisfied -… c. that action has been taken, or is immediately threatened, by any person, of such a nature and on so extensive a scale, as to be likely to endanger the public safety or to deprive the community or any substantial portion of the community of supplies or services essential to life." The Constitution entrusts the President in consultation with the Prime Minister to discern whether a situation merits the call for a State of Emergency. It was surely not intended that the powers to restrict the 'sacred' Constitutional rights of citizens would be used recklessly.
There has been no acceptable justification for the calling of a State of Emergency. A State of Emergency would do very little to handle criminal activity in the long term; the calling of a State of Emergency was originally intended to be used under the condition of an immediate threat. The Prime Minister was recently quoted boasting that "crime is down to zero." However, she would soon find out that a State of Emergency cannot last forever. Any government could ensure a reduction in crime by restricting the freedoms of individuals (the Soviet Union showed us for eighty years) but the dilemma that all governments must face and that this government would be forced to face is how to maintain law and order in a society of free-men. A State of Emergency cannot solve the problem that exists in Trinidad and Tobago, for it started a long time ago, when leaders and the mass of Trinbagonians themselves began condoning, in the words of Ramesh Deosaran, 'illegal activity for legitimate reasons.'
The present State of Emergency would undoubtedly lower the crime rate which would serve the immediate political interest of those in power, but would do little to solve the social problems that exist within our society of which crime is only a symptom.
True respect for laws and moral values in Trinidad and Tobago must be regained and this could only be done when the numerous hypocritical leaders who occupy the seats of power begin to reform firstly themselves; when the many delinquent parents accept responsibility for raising a generation plagued with criminals that they themselves hypocritically rebuke, and when the numerous media houses take at-least partial responsibility for engineering a society of young adults who are more knowledgeable of foreign culture than their own, then and only then would this great nation of ours begin to come to terms with itself.
Mikhail E.D. Byng
