Gail Alexan­der

PNM MP Amery Browne, cau­tion­ing those who con­tribute to "in­se­cu­ri­ty" in the PNM, has said he will sup­port events by all his col­leagues in­clud­ing for­mer leader Patrick Man­ning's walk for democ­ra­cy.

Browne on Face­book, said he sup­port­ed a call made in the par­ty re­cent­ly by a PNM youth league mem­ber for an im­me­di­ate me­di­a­tion com­mit­tee to be­gin treat­ing di­rect­ly "with the ma­jor per­son­al­i­ty di­ver­gence that con­tin­ues to plague us." Browne added, "Such a move would be much more pro­gres­sive than any of the oth­er po­ten­tial op­tions which in­clud­ed: In­ter­nal witch­hunts, ef­forts to iso­late or shun mem­bers, mo­bil­i­sa­tion of hatch­et men and char­ac­ter as­sas­sins via the me­dia."

Say­ing PNM seems "trapped in a prison of in­se­cu­ri­ty," he added, "We must ad­mit some peo­ple are con­tribut­ing to this new op­po­si­tion be­ing in dan­ger of be­com­ing char­ac­terised by per­va­sive in­se­cu­ri­ty......If the PNM is not hos­pitable to its own, how can we be seen as hos­pitable to oth­ers? "

Browne told "var­i­ous arm­chair glad­i­a­tors": "The pet­ti­ness and vin­dic­tive­ness and de­sire for ret­ri­bu­tion should stop. I on­ly have 11 col­leagues in the Low­er House till the next elec­tion. ...we're all im­por­tant for the unit to progress." He said if PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley had a pub­lic meet­ing, he would do his best to be present and sup­port it. He said the same ap­plied to all col­leagues in­clud­ing Man­ning. Browne added, "We should not con­tin­ue to squan­der op­por­tu­ni­ties that present them­selves, some at no cost, to high­light the true pic­ture. "

"If we put our house in or­der and our squab­bles be­hind us, in­stead of hun­dreds there would be tens of thou­sands protest­ing against the Gov­ern­ment." Browne warned against PN­Mites tak­ing "bait" from oth­ers to fight each oth­er: "Un­for­tu­nate­ly some of the 'baiters' may in­clude the good 'ole ad­vi­sors that lurk be­hind the scenes; our lead­ers must re­mem­ber that 'a Move­ment (P.N.M.) of peo­ple' im­plies an avoid­ance of sta­sis and an on­go­ing evo­lu­tion to­ward en­light­en­ment." "Has the in­put of these ad­vi­sors re­sult­ed in a par­ty that is stronger and more unit­ed to­day than six months ago? In re­al­i­ty it's be­cause of the con­tri­bu­tions of some of this same cal­i­bre of ad­vi­sor that we find our­selves to­day need­ing to pause and re-di­rect some of our en­er­gies."

Browne added, "If for­give­ness, love and prin­ci­ple do not char­ac­terise our ac­tions in op­po­si­tion, how will we ever de­serve to ad­min­is­ter a na­tion as pre­cious as T&T?" "It's gen­uine­ly painful to see a few con­stituen­cy mem­bers spar­ring with one an­oth­er in the be­lief they are as­sist­ing var­i­ous MPs." Browne added, "T&T needs a unit­ed, strong op­po­si­tion, and we should re­main prayer­ful, hope­ful and con­struc­tive to in­sist our mem­bers and lead­er­ship achieve ex­act­ly that."