Gail Alexan­der

The Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Cab­i­net has dis­tanced it­self from state­ments made at UNC's Mon­day night fo­rum in Debe about hunger strik­er Wayne Kublals­ingh. The en­tire Cab­i­net yes­ter­day said a prayer for Kublals­ingh to eat so he can "con­tin­ue fight­ing, not on­ly for the Point Fortin High­way is­sue but many oth­er is­sues," Sport Min­is­ter Anil Roberts said.

Speak­ing at yes­ter­day's post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing Roberts said Jack Warn­er, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, was present when the prayers were said. Warn­er, chair­man of the UNC, and UNC deputy leader Roodal Mooni­lal, at UNC's Mon­day night fo­rum, crit­i­cised Kublals­ingh's ac­tion. Yes­ter­day's brief­ing took place at the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair, oblique­ly op­po­site Kublals­ingh's strike camp.

At yes­ter­day's brief­ing, Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Ja­mal Mo­hammed dis­tanced the Cab­i­net from state­ments made about Kublals­ingh at the fo­rum. He said the on­ly po­si­tion of the Cab­i­net on the Kublals­ingh is­sue was the Prime Min­is­ter's state­ment, which was de­liv­ered last Thurs­day at the PM's me­dia lun­cheon, where she spoke about the mat­ter, say­ing Kublals­ingh didn't want to meet with her.

Asked if the state­ments at Mon­day's UNC?meet­ing were a Gov­ern­ment po­si­tion, Mo­hammed said: "No. The state­ment by the Prime Min­is­ter at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre last Thurs­day re­mains the of­fi­cial po­si­tion of the Gov­ern­ment." He had no com­ment on whether Gov­ern­ment was shun­ning the state­ments made at the UNC fo­rum.

Asked about state­ments by their COP?col­leagues dis­tanc­ing them­selves from the UNC state­ments, Mo­hammed said: "Even if we be­long to the COP, that's a dif­fer­ent ket­tle of fish. Last Thurs­day at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre the Prime Min­is­ter made the most de­fin­i­tive state­ment on the (high­way) is­sue and we be­lieve it's a very de­fin­i­tive and com­plete state­ment on be­half of Gov­ern­ment."

Asked if it was pro­to­col for min­is­ters to speak out against some­thing the Prime Min­is­ter had said, Mo­hammed said the Prime Min­is­ter's state­ment was the Gov­ern­ment's po­si­tion and "we stand by it and that po­si­tion hasn't changed at this time." He said it would be un­fair to say if any min­is­ter would be chas­tised for speak­ing out at the UNC fo­rum on Mon­day.

On the fact that oth­er min­is­ters were say­ing dif­fer­ent things from what the PM said, Mo­hammed said: "The state­ment by the Prime Min­is­ter last Thurs­day is the com­plete and de­fin­i­tive state­ment on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment." He re­peat­ed that when asked if the hunger strike or high­way is­sues arose at the Cab­i­net yes­ter­day.

To that, Roberts added: "Be­fore the Cab­i­net notes were brought, the en­tire Cab­i­net stood and, as is cus­tom­ary, we said a prayer and in our prayers we prayed for the health of Dr Kublals­ingh, for him to take sus­tain­ing liq­uids and that he would be A-OK and we al­so com­mend­ed his stick-to-itive­ness and his will.

"But the en­tire Cab­i­net would love for Dr Kublals­ingh to eat so that he can con­tin­ue fight­ing, not on­ly for this is­sue but many oth­er is­sues as he moves for­wards. So we all prayed for him." \

Roberts was in­tial­ly asked to com­ment on the dis­tance that his COP?col­leagues- Prakash Ra­mad­har, Win­ston?Dook­er­an and Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan-have put be­tween them­selves and the UNC's state­ments on Mon­day but he re­peat­ed­ly ducked the query un­til Mo­hammed was asked the same ques­tion.

He said no note was brought to the Cab­i­net about the re­quest by the JCC and oth­er civ­il so­ci­ety groups for the re­port on the high­way is­sue and for an in­de­pen­dent in­quiry. He said they did not write to the Cab­i­net. Mo­hammed added: "We shall make an ef­fort on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide copies (of the doc­u­ments) to the me­dia."

Mo­hammed said the doc­u­ments were pub­lic pa­pers and avail­able through the courts. Roberts re­called Kublals­ingh had protest­ed with him against the smelter and Al­coa is­sues and that for­mer PNM?prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning nev­er met with the pro­test­ers.

Roberts re­called Kublals­ingh had been thrown out of the lob­by of for­mer PNM?min­is­ter Con­rad Enill's min­istry. "I?shall pray for my friend, col­league and sol­dier, Wayne Kublals­ingh, tonight, not on­ly dur­ing Cab­i­net," Roberts added.