Caribbean & Central America - April 2016 (ISSN 1741-4458)

*** TRINIDAD MOVES TO STRENGTHEN SECURITY CAPABILITIES. Trinidad & Tobago faces two major security challenges. The first is the issue of TT citizens’ involvement in terrorism. In February, the Trinidad & Tobago Financial Intelligence Unit (FIUTT) reported a “significant increase” in suspicious financial transactions that could be linked to terrorism. These are thought to have tripled between 2013/14 and 2014/15. The FIUTT also reported that it had “received and analysed information from other local and international sources on over 100 persons who are suspected of participating in terrorist activities”.

The second issue is violent domestic crime, which Prime Minister Keith Rowley described on 3 April as a “national crisis”. In a speech to a gathering of the ruling People’s National Movement (PNM), Rowley said that there had been 122 murders so far this year, which put the country on course for a full-year murder total of 500. He said: “I am putting it to you today that that level of unacceptable conduct is a national crisis”.

The government’s response to these twin crises has been to introduce new legislation to strengthen the Strategic Services Agency (SSA) and to give it greater authority and capabilities to monitor people who are suspected of involvement in serious crime. The issue is politically controversial because in 2010 the-then People’s Partnership (PP) government claimed that the previous PNM government had authorised the monitoring of phones used by journalists, politicians, and judges. The PP government amended the relevant legislation and dismissed a number of SSA employees.

Separately, the PNM government has said that the Integrity Commission is to investigate members of the ousted PP government over their role in the multi-billion-dollar Point Fortin Highway project. On 1 April, Attorney-General Stuart Young said: “Government’s intention is to request that the Integrity Commission investigate this travesty as there appears to be a breach of Section 24 of the Integrity in Public Life Act, as persons performing their functions and administering public resources for which they were responsible did not do so in a cost-effective way.”

*** PORTIA TO FIGHT FOR PNP LEADERSHIP. Having lost the 25 February general election, People’s National Party leader Portia Simpson Miller seems certain to face a leadership challenge at the party’s annual conference in September. But Simpson Miller has confirmed that she will be resisting any challenge, saying at a press conference on 4 April: “I’m not the only political leader in Jamaica that lost an election, and I didn’t hear calls for the others to step aside.” Perhaps, she added, it’s “because I’m of a different gender”.

It is too early to say who will be the main challengers as nominations for the leadership do not have to be submitted until July, but former finance minister Peter Phillips seems certain to be one of those seeking the leadership.

*** GUYANA WELCOMES DECREASE IN SERIOUS CRIME. According to the Guyana Police Force (GPF), there was a 14% decrease in serious crime in the first quarter of 2016. In total, there were 825 serious crimes recorded in the first quarter of 2016 against 963 in the same period of 2015. The number of murders, 42 against 40 (down 5%), showed only a marginal improvement, but the number of recorded rapes (70) was down 16% from last year’s first quarter figure of 83. Another significant improvement was in the number of robberies in which firearms were used, down 10% to 133 (from 147 in the same period of 2015). The GPF attributed the improvement, in part, to the “implementation of social problem-solving strategies…and the strong partnership we have forged with civil society”.