Beckles urges Govt to reconsider decision to cancel parade

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Opposition Leader Pennelope Beckles is calling on the Government to reconsider cancelling the Independence Day Parade, saying it is an affront to the patriots of the country.

In a media release yesterday, hours after Government made the announcement, Beckles said the cancellation needs to be fully and clearly ventilated.

“This affront to our independence, democracy, and national identity is yet another leg in this galloping dictatorship, as our country now sprints further away from democracy and bolts towards autocracy under this regime. The decision to cancel the parade two weeks in advance would not positively impact the morale of the citizens, particularly our youth, who either for a first time or again, would have looked forward with pride to celebrate the independence and sovereignty of Trinidad and Tobago,” Beckles said.

During a media conference yesterday Legal Affairs Minister Saddam Hosein said the cancellation was made after advice from National Security agencies that it would be unwise to have top state officials and members of the Judiciary in one area at the same time, particularly as the State of Emergency was called to address a viable threat against the lives of top state officials.

This, he said, even after Police Commissioner Allister Guevarro said on Monday that the main threat behind the SoE had been neutralised.

In her statement, Beckles added: “Four days after the Prime Minister (Kamla Persad-Bissessar) said that crime is down and the country can feel safer, she cancelled the Independence Day Parade. Persad-Bissessar, in the comfort of her Monday Night Forum on August 11th 2025, ‘Are you safer today? Are you Safer Today? And that answer has to be yes because the facts tell us that.’ This statement, along with agents of the Government repeatedly parroting the refrain that the threat that caused the SoE had been “thwarted,” casts great doubt in the minds of the citizenry of the country. What can we believe?”

Beckles said the rationale advanced by the Government for “the exceptionally extraordinary decision” to cancel what she described as the “principal commemorative national community building activity,” does not satisfy the requirements of exceptionality.

Another reason given by Hosein was that the cancellation would save taxpayers an undisclosed sum, possibly in the millions, which will be used by the law enforcement officers to address crime.

But Beckles dismissed this claim.

“The rationale does not satisfy the requirements of exceptionality, even on the grounds of national security and fiscal responsibility presented, with an insufficiency of clarity and an inescapable undertone of pretext. The cost-benefit analysis for cancelling such a recognised occasion for promoting patriotism, national pride and civic solidarity, suggests that the full significance and value of the annual Independence Day Parade may have only been assessed in financial terms, and regrettably not for its patriotic, social and cultural importance.”

She added that the citizens deserve a clear explanation on why the country’s “most symbolic historic and powerful event” was cancelled.

“The Independence Day Parade has been far more than ceremony. It is a living classroom where our young people see history in motion, where they learn about the sacrifices of those who came before, the discipline of our armed forces, and the values that bind us together.”