Lead­er­ship prob­lems are a sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenge fac­ing democ­ra­cy, as is ev­i­dent when lead­ers un­der­mine the rule of law and po­lit­i­cal­ly in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions, at­tempt to ma­nip­u­late bound­aries, cen­tralise pow­er, and use pop­ulist rhetoric that weak­ens in­sti­tu­tion­al checks and bal­ances.

No good is served by scare­mon­ger­ing and in­sults that sup­press cit­i­zens’ le­git­i­mate con­cerns over un­con­sti­tu­tion­al and dra­con­ian laws that tar­get not just crim­i­nals but al­so hu­man rights. Laws be­come a sword in the hands of rogues when checks and bal­ances, trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty are weak­ened or ig­nored.

Na­tion­al elec­tions are on­ly one gauge of democ­ra­cy. Lead­ers’ sound judge­ment and their re­spon­si­ble ex­er­cise of the pow­ers en­trust­ed to them are crit­i­cal fac­tors. When they use pop­ulist strate­gies ex­ploit­ing crime, eth­nic dif­fer­ences, and pover­ty to ex­pand their au­thor­i­ty, they weak­en democ­ra­cy. Of course, lead­er­ship is­sues al­so re­flect deep struc­tur­al prob­lems of eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, po­lar­i­sa­tion, and po­lit­i­cal en­croach­ment on ju­di­cial and oth­er in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions de­signed to up­hold the pil­lars of democ­ra­cy. These are in ad­di­tion to ex­ter­nal pres­sures in the glob­al en­vi­ron­ment.

The Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill (ZOSO) failed, and the Gov­ern­ment con­tin­ues to blame in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors for its de­feat. In­de­pen­dent sen­a­tors sup­port­ed the bill’s goals and pro­posed amend­ments to en­sure con­sti­tu­tion­al sound­ness. The At­tor­ney Gen­er­al ac­knowl­edged that some amend­ments were sub­stan­tial and wor­thy of con­sid­er­a­tion. The Gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, re­fused to ac­cept amend­ments, ar­gu­ing that the State of Emer­gency (SoE) was about to end and the law need­ed to be passed. Since fail­ure of the bill would have meant that there would be no law to im­ple­ment at the end of the SoE any­way, why didn’t the Gov­ern­ment agree to send the bill to a joint se­lect com­mit­tee and re­turn to Par­lia­ment with­in a cou­ple of days? They have a con­sti­tu­tion­al ma­jor­i­ty in the House, so with nec­es­sary amend­ments, even a sun­set clause, pas­sage was cer­tain. Once a bill fails, it can­not be rein­tro­duced for six months with­out the agree­ment of all par­ties, gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion, hence a new SoE. While un­der an SoE, the po­lice can take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­tions with­out a war­rant, it is not a con­tin­u­ing sys­tem like the failed ZOSO Bill, with no end to the in­stal­ment.

Crime needs strong and ag­gres­sive law en­force­ment re­spons­es to de­tect and re­lent­less­ly pros­e­cute crim­i­nals who trau­ma­tise com­mu­ni­ties, deny­ing them free­dom of move­ment and as­so­ci­a­tion, de­stroy­ing their qual­i­ty of life. The law must be con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly sound in em­pow­er­ing law en­forcers to re­move these crim­i­nal gangs. With the op­er­a­tional­i­sa­tion of the SoE reg­u­la­tions, there is rea­son for vig­i­lance. We know there are po­lice rogues, though the ma­jor­i­ty are con­sci­en­tious of­fi­cers.

The Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty’s re­cent words were un­for­tu­nate. By ad­vo­cat­ing for the US to re­voke visas of cit­i­zens based on their so­cial me­dia ac­tiv­i­ty and to sup­press free speech af­ter a video was cir­cu­lat­ed show­ing the con­tro­ver­sial killing of Joshua Sama­roo, he gave the im­pres­sion of a neg­a­tive pre­dis­po­si­tion to­ward hu­man rights. In Sep­tem­ber 2025, he said po­lice body cam­eras were can­celled to save funds. There is no as­sur­ance that po­lice will wear these dur­ing the SoE op­er­a­tions. He al­so de­clared that the TTPS should have the au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate com­plaints against the po­lice for their al­leged crimes—him­self un­to him­self—and spoke against strength­en­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­to­ry pow­ers of the Po­lice Com­plaints Au­thor­i­ty, the par­lia­men­tary in­sti­tu­tion es­tab­lished to in­ves­ti­gate se­ri­ous po­lice mis­con­duct and cor­rup­tion. The TTPS web­site ap­pears to have been sub­sumed un­der his min­istry, and for months, it has not pub­lished crime sta­tis­tics. Ques­tions in Par­lia­ment on po­lice mat­ters are not al­ways an­swered on grounds of “se­cu­ri­ty” or side­lined to writ­ten an­swers that the pub­lic doesn’t see. The seem­ing in­dif­fer­ence to trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty is con­cern­ing.

In the last ten years, 2015 to 2025, there were 393 fa­tal po­lice shoot­ings, with the high­est num­ber, 55, in 2025. Not all po­lice shoot­ings are un­law­ful. An es­ti­mat­ed $103 mil­lion val­ue in high-grade mar­i­jua­na seized by po­lice has dis­ap­peared. Re­call an ear­li­er time, when rats ate drugs se­cured by the po­lice, and re­mem­ber the po­lice de­c­la­ra­tion of a day of “to­tal polic­ing” when they locked down the whole coun­try, al­leged­ly, for in­dus­tri­al rea­sons. These aren’t mi­nor mat­ters. They strike at the heart of pub­lic trust.

How of­ten have we heard that the po­lice know the gangs ter­ror­is­ing us and where they are? Suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments en­riched them with State con­tracts. Cer­tain­ly, they’re armed to kill. Il­le­gal pos­ses­sion of firearms car­ries a sen­tence of up to 25 years.

• Con­tin­ues on page 22

Why aren’t they in jail? We have an An­ti-Gang Law and a Bail Law; the lat­ter en­cour­ages po­lice de­lays and in­com­pe­tence in gath­er­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al ev­i­dence.

Ac­cord­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter, “In 2025, with a change of pol­i­cy to treat drug car­tels and gangs as vi­o­lent ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tions, the mil­i­tary ac­tion by the Amer­i­can mil­i­tary in the Caribbean caused Trinidad and To­ba­go’s mur­der rate to de­crease by 42% or 257 mur­ders.” So, what did our po­lice do? Let’s be clear. The US and T&T have, since our In­de­pen­dence, al­ways had an ex­cel­lent part­ner­ship in na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters, pro­vid­ing train­ing, ex­per­tise, and in­ves­tiga­tive sup­port against transna­tion­al or­gan­ised crime, shar­ing in­tel­li­gence, and work­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly on shared cas­es.

“Our neigh­bours will al­ways be there”

Re­gard­ing Cari­com, what lead­ers do in our name con­cerns us all. Our gov­ern­ments have nev­er sup­port­ed dic­ta­tor­ships, whether in Venezuela, Cu­ba or else­where. T&T’s ex­cel­lent for­eign re­la­tions were found­ed on re­spect for the sov­er­eign­ty of na­tions, cul­tur­al sen­si­tiv­i­ty, ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law and ad­vo­ca­cy for the op­pressed, as in sup­port of the Cuban and Venezue­lan peo­ples. We have a his­to­ry of in­tegri­ty and col­lab­o­ra­tion in nav­i­gat­ing com­plex sit­u­a­tions in our for­eign and trade re­la­tions with coun­tries in the East, West, North, and South. So too with Cari­com. We have es­tab­lished re­spect­ful re­la­tions and pur­sued strate­gies for mu­tu­al ben­e­fit with our Caribbean fam­i­ly, from which we have ben­e­fit­ed the most.

Cari­com does not bind mem­bers ex­clu­sive­ly to the re­gion. In­deed, some are mem­bers of oth­er south­ern hemi­sphere groups. We’re an en­er­gy-based econ­o­my, while Cari­com mem­bers are pri­mar­i­ly tourism-based. That alone un­der­scores the need for mem­bers to seek in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners to ad­vance their re­spec­tive for­eign re­la­tions and eco­nom­ic goals, in their own na­tion­al in­ter­ests, while sup­port­ing the prin­ci­ples of Cari­com in ways that ben­e­fit them.

That they have been do­ing for 52 years. Cari­com has short­com­ings and fail­ings, as do all ge­o­graph­ic unions.

As small, vul­ner­a­ble so­ci­eties, im­pact­ed by mar­ket and oth­er ex­oge­nous forces and with­out mil­i­tary might, we have one vi­able course of ac­tion in the face of threats. That is to ne­go­ti­ate and col­lab­o­rate for peace. It is what Cari­com did when it came to de­fend­ing Guyana in the face of Venezuela’s di­rect mil­i­tary threat. Mem­bers be­lieve in nav­i­gat­ing great pow­er strate­gies through ad­her­ence to in­ter­na­tion­al law and diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ment. Un­like in the in­tend­ed mil­i­tary at­tack on Guyana, Venezue­lan lead­ers used strong rhetoric and warn­ings to Trinidad and To­ba­go in re­la­tion to the be­lief that its se­cu­ri­ty was un­der threat be­cause of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s align­ment with US mil­i­tary ac­tiv­i­ties in the re­gion. Gov­ern­ments don’t last for­ev­er.

Our neigh­bours will al­ways be there. T&T has al­ways been con­sid­ered a re­gion­al leader and a re­spect­ed in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner with­out be­ing any­one’s mouth­piece. Guyana’s leader, Pres­i­dent Ir­faan Ali, ob­vi­ous­ly sup­port­ed the US re­moval of the source of Venezuela’s im­mi­nent ter­ri­to­r­i­al threat to his coun­try, while main­tain­ing Guyana’s dig­ni­ty and sov­er­eign­ty and ad­vo­cat­ing the peace­ful as­pi­ra­tions of the Caribbean fam­i­ly. Pru­dent lead­er­ship and peace, so it should be.