(Trinidad Express) A rocky start to Jack Warner’s tenure as National Security Minister.
Warner’s action and role in yesterday’s early morning destruction of the camp of the Highway Re-Route Movement in Debe and the arrest of environmental activist Dr Wayne Kublalsingh elicited shock, disappointment, anger and consternation from many quarters, including the Congress of the People (COP), a principal partner in the People’s Partnership Government.
However, Warner’s Cabinet colleagues, including new Works and Infrastructure Minister Emmanuel George, “concurred” with the action while Housing Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal “congratulated” Warner on taking “decisive action”, “concurred” and defended his actions against the protesters.
George said the protesters’ camp was obstructing the construction of the Point Fortin Highway and therefore costing taxpayers “millions of dollars a day”.
He made the statement yesterday during a news conference at the National Security Ministry, Temple Court, Port of Spain, to address the issue of the demolition of the protesters’ camp.
“This issue has been in the public domain for some considerable time, and you will quite appreciate that the project is one that is intended to bring a lot of benefit to the community, to the wider community, and we are of the view that it is costing the taxpayers of this country a lot of money on a daily basis,” George said.
“Camps like that are put on the highway’s right of way, so we needed to move that camp to save the public a lot of money, millions of dollars that we lose every day as a result of the camp being there, in addition to which, we believe that occupation by those individuals is illegal and, therefore, they needed to be moved,” he said.
“All of the discussions that have been going on all of these months seemed to be heading nowhere for the precise reasons because there seemed to be no willingness to compromise on the part of the occupiers, so I am in full support of what was done (yesterday), and I hope that it will result in the highway being constructed” without interruption, George said.
Warner yesterday said he liaised with George before he called on Chief of Defence Staff Brigadier Kenrick Maharaj for soldier support to demolish the protesters’ campsite.
The demolition exercise came less than 48 hours after Warner, portrayed as the “action” and “can-do” minister by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, assumed control of his new portfolio.
But his first salvo drew criticism for his alleged role in directing the police and army in the demolition activity at the Debe protest camp.
Warner was accused of actively participating in the destruction.
Former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, who is now representing Kublalsingh and the Re-Route Movement, commented that due process was not followed.
Maharaj pointed out that in a society of law, one had to observe certain procedures, even when dealing with squatters on State lands.
“This is a serious and unprecedented breach of the Constitution”, he said, adding the police and army are not to take instructions from a minister.
The COP expressed its profound disagreement with Warner’s action.
It said there was a constitutional separation between the legislative and coercive arms of the State. It was therefore concerned that several Government ministers (Warner and Minister in the Ministry of National Security Collin Partap) were involved in “essentially a police-military operation”.
Former partner Movement for Social Justice (MSJ) called on the Prime Minister to fire Warner or to rein him in.
Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley also slammed what he saw as the reckless abandon of the minister.
Meanwhile, former prime minister Basdeo Panday described the action as “frightening”.
Attorney-at-law and former Law Association president Martin Daly also reacted strongly to the move.
Daly said in a telephone interview it was entirely out of order for any minister of Government to be directing law enforcement officers in the field.
“If they (the Government) take a decision that requires the use of law enforcement, they must communicate it (the decision) to the appropriate service chiefs (Commissioner of Police, Chief of Defence Staff, etc) and leave them (law enforcement) to carry out their duty. A minister is not trained in law enforcement and, therefore, he does not know what the boundaries of law enforcement are, and that adds to the danger of him directing law enforcement in the field,” Daly stated.
However, Daly said he was not surprised by this type of “questionable intervention, given the proclamation that this minister was going to be very successful”.
He added that he hoped the reported resurrection of the Flying Squad is not designed to play to the same proclamation of success.
