PANA­MA CITY—Ja­maica’s Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade, Kam­i­na John­son Smith, con­tin­ues to rec­om­mend her coun­try’s Zones of Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions (ZOSOs) as a key part of a crime-fight­ing strat­e­gy, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter sim­i­lar leg­is­la­tion failed to pass in the Trinidad and To­ba­go Sen­ate.

John­son Smith spoke with Guardian Me­dia on Wednes­day night on the pe­riph­eries of CAF’s In­ter­na­tion­al Eco­nom­ic Fo­rum in Pana­ma City, hours af­ter sen­a­tors re­ject­ed amend­ments to the ZOSO bill, de­spite the Gov­ern­ment’s ef­fort to pass the leg­is­la­tion be­fore the State of Emer­gency ends on Jan­u­ary 31.

“I didn’t know that,” John­son Smith said, look­ing vis­i­bly sur­prised when in­formed of the bill’s fail­ure. “The ZOSOs have been a crit­i­cal part of the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ar­chi­tec­ture and part of the ecosys­tem that we have used to de­liv­er the mul­ti-pronged ap­proach that has led to the mas­sive re­duc­tions that we are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing in homi­cide.”