Category Archives: Security

The case for a local police commissioner

Acting Commissioner of Police James Philbert
Acting Commissioner of Police James Philbert
By Tony Fraser
June 23, 2010 – guardian.co.tt

Finding a new Commissioner of Police is not merely about recruiting the man with the right skills-set and experience, and if that individual be a foreigner then so be it. A Commissioner of Police is one of the principal officers of the State, at the helm of the main institution of national security. Having a national in that position is about the society demonstrating the capacity to govern itself 48 years after having achieved political independence. If the argument is that there is no one within the service with the capacity to successfully perform the job of commissioner, that would be an indictment not only on the senior officers in the service but on the political and administrative managers of the service over the period 1962 to the present.
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Ministry of Justice?

By Dana Seetahal
May 30, 2010 – guardian.co.tt

Herbert Volney“…one of the matters that I have questions about is the Ministry of Justice. As I write this column, there has yet been no Minister of Justice appointed. My concern, though, is how such a ministry will function within the provisions of our constitution.
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State Guards for Manning

Former Prime Minister Patrick Manning
Former Prime Minister Patrick Manning
By Clint Chan Tack
May 29 2010 – newsday.co.tt

PRIME MINISTER Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday instructed her new Minister of National Security, Brigaidier General John Sandy to provide state security to former Prime Minister Patrick Manning.
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Shame: President’s Roof Collapses

Top Floor of West Wing, President's House Collapses
Top Floor of West Wing, President's House Collapses
Shame, Shame, Shame

By Rhondor Dowlat and Andre Bagoo
Monday, May 17 2010

A LARGE section of the top floor of the West Wing of the President’s House in St Ann’s, directly above the visitor’s entrance, came crashing down on Saturday morning owing to the dilapidated nature of the Official Residence of the country’s Head of State/Commander in Chief.
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Election 2010: An Opportunity for Change

Election 2010

By Heru
May 03, 2010
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Here is my blunt take on this upcoming election. Neither the UNC and their United Force of Change nor the PNM are truly convincing to me but that cannot stop me from taking steps now that would be part of a process to get improved governance. Doing nothing is not an option as it can encourage the wrongs that exist to continue and for non-doers to be also complicit in them. There is no way that we will be absolutely absolved from complicity in the wrongs of any government. We have to continually work at ebbing away our complicity by working towards improved governance which starts with people being honest and objective about what they want and how they go about getting it.
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Entry ban fallout

Minister of National Security Martin Joseph
Minister of National Security Martin Joseph
Newsday Editorial
April 27, 2010 – newsday.co.tt

Unless and until the Minister of National Security can convince us differently the following has to be said.

Bernard Campbell was not allowed to enter the country because the PNM was afraid that he would successfully help the UNC coalition win the election on May 24.
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Obama Advisor Denied Entry to T&T

PM Patrick Manning and Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar
PNM Patrick Manning vs UNC Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Obama Advisor Deported
AMERICAN citizen Henry Bernard Campbell, who was part of the political strategy team which propelled Barack Obama to the White House, was deported from this country early yesterday morning, hours after arriving at Piarco International Airport from the US.

American strategist for UNC election campaign blocked at airport

Obama man sent back
UNC Political Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar says the deportation of Bernie Campbell—the former campaign strategist of Barack Obama—is an international disgrace that will affect diplomatic relations between T&T and the US.
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Crime shift from urban to rural districts

By Raffique Shah
December 13, 2009
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

ViolenceI WISH I could take comfort in the marginal drop in the number of murders this year when compared with last year, the way Acting Commissioner James Philbert does. At a recent year-end function, (Acting) Assistant Commissioner Gilbert Reyes sought to assure citizens that soon we shall not only hear talk about further crime-cuts, but we shall have less crime to talk and write about.
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Police executed my friends, Morvant man says

‘I played dead to stay alive’

By Francis Joseph
December 03, 2009 – guardian.co.tt

Codi AlvesCodi Alves is living a second life today after he miraculously escaped death when police killed his three friends in Morvant on the night of October 1.

Alves, 30, said he had to “play dead to stay alive,” otherwise he would have been killed by the police. He “played dead” from Morvant to Port-of-Spain General Hospital where he awoke in the mortuary, much to the surprise of the lone policeman and hospital staff. But his three friends—Joel Romain, 19, a former national junior sprinter, Kerwin “Lall” Joseph, 24, and Akee Caballero, 32, were not so lucky.
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An ‘old boys club’ headed by an old lady

By Raffique Shah
November 29, 2009

Trinidad and Tobago News Blog
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Commonwealth 2009 Heads of State
Commonwealth 2009 Heads of State

Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) 2009Friday morning. Big day for Prime Minister Patrick Manning. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II heads a list of dignitaries attending the CHOGM. Over the next three days Trinidad and Tobago, this small country, will showcase its wonderful Chinese architecture to our envious Commonwealth brethren. Look at me! Watch my costume (including my brand-name ‘darkers’ that I don’t take off, not even to look Her Majesty in the eye, as royal etiquette demands). Don’t mash my Performing Arts cape! I’m on the world stage!
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