Heightening the urgency - the Peter O'Connor column

This week’s commentary was meant to be a continuation of last Sunday’s discussion on the state and future of our football. But that discussion was swept off this page, first by the flash floods last weekend, and the flooding then blown away with the (still breaking as I write on Thursday!) news of assassination plots uncovered.

The country was abuzz from Wednesday afternoon with news of assassination threats against the Prime Minister, Attorney General and other Cabinet Ministers. Several persons have since been detained in connection with these threats, and since there is still a State of Emergency ongoing, these persons can be held without being charged.

While we have been promised more comprehensive statements than have been issued so far, it is clear that the government is expecting us to accept that this is a credible and an urgent threat to the Prime Minister and Members of Cabinet. We are being told that local and United States Intelligence had uncovered this plot, and that it was related to the interdiction of the drug trade passing through our country.

But we are a skeptical people, and have grown more skeptical over the course of the current SoE. So when I heard the news on Wednesday, although I accept the possibility of the threats being claimed, and I have stated my concerns of these possibilities, the first question which crossed my mind was “how is this going to be received—by the population at large, and specifically by the remnants of the PNM?” 

Why should I take on the PNM? Because while credible criticism may come from the population at large, the PNM will, with the acquiescence of sections of the media, mount platforms and spew a torrent of self-righteous ranting that the government is only doing this to extend the SoE.

And while that may well be true, the PNM simply does not have the credibility, nor the moral standing to be critical of this situation. 

It should be difficult for the PNM to be scornful of threats against the Prime Minister. They, and their supporters will conveniently forget the many threats which Patrick Manning announced on his life. 

That these were never substantiated can lend doubt to the current threats, but it should be difficult for Manning, Imbert, Hinds and Rowley to scoff at such threats! But they will—Manning too!

And please do not forget Manning’s statements in parliament, when he was still Prime Minister, that as Government (it does not matter which “government”) tightened its war against drugs, violent crime would escalate before it decreased, as the gangs fought for a diminishing supply. 

Manning also claimed that the major drug players were plotting against his life, because of the big ships he was bringing to look for big fish.

So, while rational critics and skeptics may question the government on this latest development, we should expect the PNM to endorse the action and support the tightening of security. Anything else would just be a denial of all which they claimed while in power.

However, we would all be very naïve to dismiss the claims of this threat to our security on the frivolous grounds being advanced by the “facebook intelligentsia”. 

While any one or more of a number of scenarios can be valid, the probability of the threat being real must be accepted, and the responses by the government must be swift, precise and judicious. 

If this government (or indeed any government we have!) might actually invent this threat simply to extend the SoE “to keep those menacing trade unions in their place”, then we are in deep trouble indeed.

I accept the possibility that the threat is real. I believe that in 1990 certain members of the PNM, and even the UNC were in collusion with the insurgents who stormed parliament and almost destroyed our democracy. 

I, and others, have noted parallels between certain recent activities and the incidents leading up to 1990. Indeed, I have warned of this in these columns. We all must accept the fact that Drug Lords have ordered the assassinations of presidents and prime ministers, and we are a major drug transshipment port. But having said this, I want an explanation of the extent and credibility of this threat.

And I want us to handle this better than we have handled such emergencies in the past. In 1970, all of the army mutineers (an act of treason) went free on a court judgment that their actions had been “condoned” by Brigadier Serrette. 

In 1990, all the insurgents (who had committed treason) went free on a habeas corpus writ.

This time, assuming this threat is real, let us try, convict and sentence the guilty.