The advisories have come from Britain and Australia to their nationals and corporate interests and from the United Nations to its staffers.

But while the UN and Australia advisories are focus on alerts to their staff and nationals, respectively, on caution against a criminal upsurge, it is the one from Britain's Foreign and Commonwealth Office that has provoked the ire of Prime Minister Patrick Manning's administration.

The reason being its link with threats of likely "terrorist" attacks against British nationals and corporate interests in that Caribbean Community state.

Incidentally, similar "phase one" alerts by the UN that "the security situation" in T&T the country, or a portion of it, is such that "due care and attention should be exercised by UN members in the conduct of their daily affairs", has also been issued for Guyana and Haiti.

Having had urgent separate consultations, at his request, with the British High Commissioner to Port-of-Spain and the United States Ambassador last week, Prime Minister Manning has decided to fan out ministers and officials to London, Washington and New York in an evident damage control exercise.

However, while some "special envoys" were winging their way to London and Washington late last week and others preparing to follow this weekend to New York, Manning found himself in a heated public controversy with former Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, leader of the main opposition United National Congress.

He accused Panday for giving unjustified credence to the validity of the advisory issued by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office in relation to the "terrorist threat".

Panday's surprising accusation that Manning may have contributed to the fears of the British Government by his own association with elements suspected of having "al Qaeda connections" - a clear reference to the controversial Jamaat-al-Muslimeen - sent the Prime Minister in a rage.

He slammed the UNC leader for being "highly irresponsible, venomously vindictive and diabolically destructive" to the national interest of Trinidad and Tobago.

Panday was dismissive of the emissaries despatched abroad. He insisted, without proof, that the so-called "al Qaeda connections" may have influenced the decision of two UK-based cruise ship companies to pull out from doing business with Trinidad and Tobago.

The official resentment in Port-of-Spain against the British advisory has not been extended to the one subsequently released either by the UN. At least not publicly as yet, although the matter is expected to be officially raised this week at UN headquarters.

Trinidad and Tobago is the latest Caribbean state to feel the effects of often controversial "security" or "crime" advisories that crop up from the metropolitan centres of financial, economic and military power - London and Washington in particular - to their nationals and corporate interests abroad.

Both the 'Trinidad Guardian' and 'Express', in having their say, editorially, last week, pointed to the alarming levels of crime in the country but made the distinction in relation to "terrorism".

The 'Guardian" reminded that "the biggest terrorist acts here", "occurred 12 years ago", a reference to the abortive 1990 coup by the militant Muslim group of Yasin Abu Bakr, the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen. But it appreciated, it stressed, the need for caution.

While declaring that the startling crime statistics suggest that Trinidad and Tobago had become "an unsafe country", the `Express’ said that the travel advisories "will have a significant adverse impact on tourism and investment. And without any major dent in local crime levels, sending damage control emissaries abroad can only be an exercise in futility...".

At the time of writing, neither Guyana nor Haiti had officially reacted to the UN advisory to staffers.

But Jamaica and other Caribbean Community states that depend heavily on tourism have had some hurtful experiences in the past of travel advisories warning of possible attacks from criminals at periods of escalating criminal violence and robberies.

The right of any sovereign state to issue advisories to their nationals travelling abroad or alerts to their corporate interests abroad, based on reliable information, is not being questioned. Especially if done following consultation with the authorities of the jurisdiction of concern.

What is being questioned, in more than official quarters in the region is the surprising alacrity of major powers with which the Caribbean has maintained mutually satisfactory post-independence relations at all levels, should be issuing "advisories" that could result in serious harm to regional economies.

The advisory sent out last December 6 by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office about the potential terrorist threat prevailing in Trinidad and Tobago is one such disturbing example.

There is a difference in a foreign state advising its travelling citizens to be careful against criminals at a time of an upsurge in murder, robberies and criminal violence in the countries they are visiting, and that of an advisory, as in the British case, of "possible" terrorist attacks.

But no comfort should be given to the British for an evidently ill-advised advisory on the "terrorism threat", in contrast to the upsurge in criminal offences, that had the immediate effect of the withdrawal of two UK-based cruise ship companies from doing business in Trinidad and Tobago.

When Baroness Amos of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office chose to ignore the advice and the pleas of the Trinidad and Tobago Government, and issued the damaging December "advisory" on the likelihood of terrorist activities, what hard evidence Britain really possessed? We would not be told.

But it would be surprising to know that it was based on intelligence information provided by any of the major corporate interests operating in T&T, among them British Gas and BP Trinidad and Tobago (BPTT). Neither has ever given any indication of being scared of possible terrorist attacks.

Certainly, it could not have resulted from any consultation with the British-Caribbean Chamber of Commerce in Trinidad and Tobago. Not from what the Chamber had to say publicly about the country being a good place for foreign investment and visitors.

I would have liked to be the proverbial fly on the wall at that meeting last Tuesday between Prime Minister Manning and British High Commissioner to Trinidad and Tobago Peter Harborne.