LEILA FADEL, HOST:
Officials in the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago declared a state of emergency this week over a surge in gang violence. Under the state of emergency, the military can make arrests, and it expands the powers of local authorities. Trinidad and Tobago reported more than 600 homicides this past year, in a country of only around 1.5 million people. Joining us from the capital, Port of Spain, is Kejan Haynes, an editor with Guardian Media. Good morning, and Happy New Year.
KEJAN HAYNES: Hey, good morning. Happy New Year to you as well.
FADEL: So what pushed Trinidad and Tobago's leaders to declare a state of emergency?
HAYNES: What we're learning is that over the weekend - last weekend - there was a specific murder that happened when gang leaders went to attack another - gang members, I should say, went to attack a gang leader who went to a police station as part of his bail conditions. He went to check in with the police station, and just - they tried to kill him at that - in that attack. The gang leader survived. But now, what the police were saying was that there are going to be reprisals from his end to the other end.
And what they were saying is that with these reprisals, there were going to be the use of very high-powered weapons - the AK-47s, AR-15s - and they were not going to care where these happened. So these people could have been targeted in public places - in the malls, in the streets, anywhere. And at that point, the authorities decided they needed a lot more powers to swoop in and get these weapons off the streets, out of the hands of the gang leaders.
FADEL: And how are people reacting? I mean, on the one hand, I'm sure people want to be protected, but the state of emergency also greatly expands powers of law enforcement to do things like put roadblocks in the street, search without warrants. I mean, how do people feel about this declaration?
HAYNES: Like many things, you're going to get a mixed reaction, and especially based on the political party that you support. If you support the government, you're all for the state of emergency. If you're for the opposition, you're tending to question it. But it's interesting because just a few days ago, the opposition people would have been calling for a state of emergency to deal with the crime situation.
I think the most important thing with this state of emergency, as opposed to the others, that there have now been five in the country. I've been alive for four of them.
FADEL: Wow.
HAYNES: There's no curfew.
FADEL: Oh, OK.
HAYNES: And when you think about this time of year, this is our time. This is Carnival time. Yesterday would have been New Year's Eve. Everyone would have been going out, and people were panicking about a curfew - a possible curfew.
FADEL: Right.
HAYNES: But with no curfew, life for the general public continues as normal, but if you are one of the people that the police are targeting, you're not going to have a good time the next couple days.
FADEL: So the state of emergency didn't put a damper on festivities on New Year's Eve?
HAYNES: And I think that's a major thing that is going to have people support this state of emergency a lot more. It is Carnival time. A lot of activities happen at night around this time of year. People are going to want that. It's also an election year. We're officially supposed to have an election sometime this year. Having that would have been the death in the political - a nail in the political coffin.
FADEL: And what happens now? I mean, is the state of emergency open-ended?
HAYNES: You have 15 days. The government has 15 days to go to Parliament to ratify it, and that gives them the right to continue it for three months. At the end of that three months, they can extend it again for another three months. Constitutionally, you cannot have a state of emergency in this country for more than six months. So we remain to see what time they end it.
FADEL: Kejan Haynes is an editor with Guardian Media in Trinidad and Tobago. Thank you for joining us.
HAYNES: Thank you so much. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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