In a rather strange address to its parliament late last week, Trinidad’s Prime Minister Keith Rowley complained about a supposed plot by an elite state security unit to possibly stage a coup and remove his governing People’s National Movement (PNM) from power, but his assertions do not appear to be gaining any political or societal traction.
His address to the 41-member house came at the end of an audit of the Strategic Services Agency (SSA), a special unit that had operated within the state security apparatus. Rowley basically told Parliament that operatives in the unit had gone rogue, stockpiling weapons and engaging in corrupt acts and nepotism by employing friends and family in the organization without approval of higher powers. He said unit leaders were militarizing the agency for no apparent reason, with orders being placed for high-powered rifles with the most modern silencers, procurement of thousands of rounds of rifle and handgun ammunition, and other unauthorized acts and acquisitions.
“Such persons belonged to a cult [that] was arming itself while preaching a doctrine for trained military and paramilitary personnel with a religious calling to be the most suitable persons to replace the country’s political leadership,” Rowley said, to the astonishment of the political opposition. “They were exerting high levels of influence on the affairs of the agency to the detriment of national security.”
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He told fellow lawmakers that the cabinet had never approved any funding for high-powered weapons with the latest silencers. “This didn’t prevent the SSA from making part payment for military-grade weapons with suppression capabilities,” he said.
By the start of this week, opposition activists and former SSA officials had moved to debunk assertions about a coup. Opposition leader and former Prime Minister Kamla Persad Bissessar argued that Rowley deliberately chose Parliament as his pulpit to complain about an alleged coup, suggesting that “it is noteworthy that Rowley’s allegations were made under parliamentary privilege to prevent any legal action from being taken for defamation.
“This story sounds remarkably familiar: a religious group stockpiling ammunition to overthrow the elected government,” she said. “Did he get this information via email? Rowley and his public relations team are not just spinning a distraction. They are orchestrating a diversion to turn attention away from critical issues such as corruption, crime, property taxes, forex shortages, joblessness, increasing utility rates, high food prices, poverty, and other negative issues plaguing the country.”
Despite the opposition leader’s reply to Rowley, the twin island nation with Tobago has a well-defined history linked to an attempted coup by a Muslim group in July 1990 and a Black Power uprising involving soldiers and civilians in 1970, so authorities in government are taking the latest evidence seriously. Then-Prime Minister Ray Robinson was shot by coup-makers when they invaded Parliament during a live session in 1990. Other state entities were attacked, including the state television station, police facilities, and other buildings. A large part of the commercial area of Port of Spain was also destroyed by fire and affected by looting.
General elections are scheduled to be held late next year, and Rowley’s Afro-dominated PNM party is expected to hold onto power for a third five-year term.
