As nationals living in the diaspora with investments in the homeland, and who travel back and forth during the year, we are concerned about the latest travel advisories issued by the governments of Canada, the US, and the UK, regarding the possibility of terrorist attacks in Trinidad and Tobago. The advisories were updated last month following a move by the government of Trinidad and Tobago and its security forces to detain persons days before the national Carnival celebrations.
In the events that unfolded last month, one week before the two intense days of celebrations, the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service called an emergency media conference and announced a threat to a few events had been detected and neutralised. The governments of Canada, the US, and the UK immediately updated travel advisories, warning visitors to Trinidad and Tobago of the possibility of a terror attack.
By that time, many of us here in the GTA were either on our way to the homeland or had already arrived among friends and relatives in preparation for Carnival celebrations. Understandably, the announcement by the government of Trinidad and Tobago, and the subsequent upgrading of the travel advisories by the Canadian government and others, were cause for heightened anxieties here in the GTA and back home. It is also understandable why we are now looking to the homeland with an additional veneer of anxiety as we plan future investments and visits.
Since then there have been no details about these attacks, which has led Opposition Leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar to question whether the Carnival terror plot was a charade and a distraction: “I have to wonder, like others have wondered, whether this whole charade that played out... over the Carnival period, whether it was just to distract your mind from all the wrongs in this country.” While Persad-Bissessar was clear she did not support terrorism, at the same time she criticised the government for what she described as the “targeting” of Trinidad and Tobago’s Islamic community.
In response, Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley said the terrorist threat was real: “There are some people who believe that this is a joke, and people who believe that this is personal persecution. Claims of religious and ethnic persecution hold no water. If you engage in criminal conduct, you are subject to monitoring and intervention by security services.”
It is understandable in the wake of these developments why the Downtown Owners and Merchants Association in Trinidad and Tobago is concerned, the group indicating wariness over fallout from the repeated, and escalating travel advisories warning visitors away from the capital city of Port-of-Spain.
DOMA also expressed similar anxiety that the claim of a Carnival threat is yet to be validated, stating that its merchants, owners, tenants and general business operators wished to advise the general public, State agencies, and various diplomatic missions that while it was “concerned like all other citizens about our nation’s security conditions, we are open for business on a daily basis”.
The group added: “We wish to express apprehension regarding the various warnings and advisories which continue to have as their common denominator a continued haziness that has placed a majority of citizens in a state of doubt. This doubt is doing untold and serious harm not only to our city, but to our country as a whole. Regionally and internationally, we are gaining a reputation of being a nation in collapse based on warnings that are not supported by evidence or facts.”
MP Dr Roodal Moonilal is correct the travel advisory is another blow to the image of Trinidad and Tobago – it would have a negative impact on tourism and investmåents. We are in total agreement with his call that the government of Trinidad and Tobago respond to nationals, and to us abroad, with how it plans to deal with this troubling situation.