(Trinidad Guardian) “Big fish” involved in the transnational drug trade may be behind the plot to assassinate Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and three of her cabinet ministers. This was the view of political scientists who dismissed any notion that political rivalry might be behind it. Dr Selwyn Ryan, Dr Bishnu Ragoonath and Dr Indira Rampersad all agreed that T&T politics had not reached the stage where prime ministers were assassinated.
While Ryan was extremely cautious and reserved in his comments, Ragoonath and Rampersad both clearly stated that if there was indeed any plot to assassinate the PM, it would be related to big fish in the drug trade. Rampersad repeatedly stressed that unless the Government came with concrete, hardcore evidence on the plot, no one was going to believe it. Ragoonath said the alleged plot presented the Government with a strategy it could take to Parliament to use to extend the state of emergency.
The political scientists agreed, however, that if there was really a plot, it had to be related to the criminal element. They attended a recent seminar at the University of the West Indies titled, “Drugs, Guns and Transnational Crime,” where Col Anthony Spencer gave a presentation. Ragoonath recalled that Spencer disclosed that over the last three months, members of the military took a significant amount of drugs off the streets.
Rampersad warned that if it did not substantiate the allegation, the Government would suffer unpopularity. She said if the assassination plot was credible, though, it could stem from the big fish who had been protected for a long time and now felt threatened by the Government’s fight against the drug trade.
