Will Trinidad and Tobago be the next Haiti?

Trinidad and Tobago witnessed a shocking last weekend of 2024 which saw a spate of murders caused by gang conflicts, compelling its government to announce a state of emergency on December 30. The just concluded year was one of the deadliest in the Caribbean nation’s history with deaths caused by violence touching 623, the highest since 2013. 

Under the emergency proclaimed by President Christine Kangaloo on the advice of the office of Prime Minister Keith Rowley, law-keepers have been empowered to conduct search people and premises without carrying warrants and detain suspects for up to two days. No curfew has been imposed, and no restriction has been put on public gatherings and meetings. 

High-profile attorney killed after declaration of emergency 

With a population of 1.5 million, Trinidad and Tobago experience one of the highest murder rates in the Caribbean, along with countries such as Jamaica and Haiti. The month of December alone saw more than 60 people killed in gun violence, including at least seven men who were killed by gunmen between December 28 and 30 across Port of Spain. 

Violence did not abate even after the emergency was declared and on the first day of 2025, high-profile attorney Randall Hector, who was involved in a case against a gang leader, was gunned down. His murder happened hours after Police Commissioner Era Harewood Christopher “guaranteed” positive outcomes from the emergency. 

Gang violence: Is Trinidad and Tobago going Haiti’s way? 

The alarming situation in Trinidad and Tobago has brought into focus a comparison with Haiti, another island-nation in the Caribbean region which has also made headlines for brutal gang crimes over the years. Between July and September 2024, escalating gang violence in Haiti saw deaths or injuries to more than 1,745 people, a human rights report by the United Nations said. It marked a more than 30 per cent rise from the preceding quarter. 

The violence in Haiti was mainly caused by gangs trying to control more territory in the poor nation which has been witnessing a political crisis since the murder of former president Jovenel Moise. The UN-backed security mission to defeat the gangs has also struggled to get enough international funding and personnel. Aid organizations have also stopped operations in Haiti and the UN has evacuated staff members. 

Trinidad and Tobago’s authorities have said that several murders committed on the island are linked to gangs and an international drug trade. The country’s geographical proximity to Venezuela and direct flight connection with Europe, the United States and Canada also make it a “prime location” for narcotics transshipment, sources in the US Department of State have said. In September last year, American and Trinidadian officials worked in tandem to arrest alleged drug trafficker Shurlan Guppy who is wanted in the US over multiple drug charges. 

It is said that more than 100 gangs are present in the dual-island nation and the violence that took place in the last week of December was caused by an alliance between the Sixx gang group and several small ones to eliminate the rival Seven group. The war between the gangs has persisted over many years and caused bloodshed. 

They control different parts of the capital Port of Spain and even though they promised a ceasefire in 2023 with the local police playing the role of negotiator, it did not last long. 

Trinidadian officials fear more clashes between the two gangs and therefore called for an emergency. 

The country’s Acting Attorney General Stuart Young said in a media briefing on December 30 the use of high-calibre firearms by criminal gangs made the violence particularly concerning, not only in Trinidad and Tobago but in the entire Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region. 

National Security Minister Fitzerald Hinds, who was present at the meeting, said the police were seeing it as an “outbreak of gang violence” and added that the military would help in enforcing the emergency. 

Prime Minister Rowley has expressed dissatisfaction but it hasn’t helped 

Prime Minister Keith Rowley, whose People’s National Movement party is set to seek a public mandate in the national elections in a few months, has faced criticism over the country’s growing violence. His office said in a statement in the wake of the proclamation of the emergency that “the circumstances warranting the declaration of the public emergency are based on the advice that the Trinidad and Tobago Police Service to the National Security Council of heightened criminal activity which endangers the public safety”. 

Rowley, who completes a decade in office in 2025, has spoken against the relentless gang violence in Trinidad and Tobago several times in the past. He said he was unhappy with the murder toll in 2024 and asked the police to make life “uncomfortable” for criminals. 

In a remark, he said the “unacceptable high level of violent crime in the country has attracted the consistent attention and not inconsiderable resources of the state”. 

“Unfortunately, even the significant efforts of the National Security agencies, have not deterred the criminal minds which operate, as though, without fear of detection and certainty of timely, dissuading punishment,” the leader added. 

However, Rowley’s outrage has not convinced his critics and the opposition who have called his leadership ineffective and reactions to the violence fake. His absence in the press conference where Young spoke added to the criticism. Opposition leader and former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar called the PM’s outrage against crime in public as “fake” and said they would not reduce the crime. 

Experts believed the prime minister lacked decisive leadership and was blaming everybody – from the police to the judiciary -- and that his government was too afraid to take concrete steps to deal with the crime. They said the political leaders of Trinidad did not want to squander political points and hence were not doing what they were expected to. 

Kamla Persad-Bissessar also imposed emergency twice 

Persad-Bissessar, who served as the prime minister between 2010 and 2014 and is eyeing a return to power this year, slammed Rowley’s state of emergency as a political gimmick and said it would not be effective. The veteran leader claimed that she had urged for a state of emergency in January 2024 since she had predicted that the year would be the “most murderous” one without it. 

The United National Congress leader said PM Rowley and his allies in the political and business communities had condemned her for saying so. “Many lives could have been saved had they heeded my advice at the beginning of this year,” she said. Persad-Bissessar said that Rowley eventually called the emergency to make people believe that he had a plan to deal with crimes ahead of the election. 

Persad-Bissessar also faced the challenge in her term. In 2011, her government imposed a limited emergency in select hot spots in many areas of Trinidad in a bid to counter a spike in violence. Overnight curfew was one of the features of the emergency. Persad-Bissessar had said that it was part of efforts to deal with “wanton acts of lawlessness”. 

Rowley, the opposition leader then, mocked the government saying it was a “panic response”. The emergency was declared after the island-nation saw 11 deaths in just two days. The former PM said the murders happened after police seized consignments worth millions of dollars, describing it as a reaction from drug gangs. 

In 2014, when the People’s Partnership including the UNC was in power, yet another emergency was triggered in response to the wave of crime but it has continued unabated. 

The way ahead for Trinidad and Tobago 

The sudden spike in gang violence in Trinidad and Tobago speaks volumes about problems that the administration needs to address on an urgent basis. Treating the menace as a law-and-order issue might not bring fruitful results. The administration, irrespective of the party that leads it, needs to come up with key policy changes or else the death tolls may continue to scale embarrassing heights. 

As one criminologist has indicated, homicides in Trinidad and Tobago could touch 700 by 2030 if there is no change of action. Trinidad and Tobago’s Police Service has cited official data to say that gang-related violence in 2024 constituted more than 42 per cent of the murders. 

The government started several community-based anti-gang initiatives in the last decade but their impact was not felt on the ground since they were discontinued. While the rival gangs look to capture more spoils from criminal activities, easy access to deadly weapons makes the bloodbath unavoidable. Issues such as the social isolation of gangs and lack of access to employment and other legitimate avenues compound the danger. 

Truces are unlikely to erase the problem of gang violence and preventive measures can be more effective. Crime needs to be treated as a public health problem, something St. Kitts and Nevis has already shown under the leadership of Prime Minister Terrance Drew, and addressing it through community-based preventive measures can go a long way in showing Trinidad and
Tobago the way forward. The recent press conference addressed by Young and Hinds also emphasised on the same, indicating that the island-nation has taken a right approach to mitigate the problem.