Geisha Kow­lessar

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley is again warn­ing that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment has put the lives of cit­i­zens, in­clud­ing those abroad, at a greater risk by co-spon­sor­ing a Unit­ed Na­tions res­o­lu­tion aimed at tack­ling glob­al ter­ror­ism.Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the de­ci­sion to co-spon­sor the res­o­lu­tion at a meet­ing of the UN Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil, chaired by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma at UN head­quar­ters, New York, two weeks ago.

But at the Diego Mar­tin West Con­stituen­cy's an­nu­al con­fer­ence at the Point Cumana Com­mu­ni­ty Com­plex in Point Cumana yes­ter­day, Row­ley ac­cused the PM of want­i­ng to take on the ter­ror­ist group Is­lam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (Isis).De­scrib­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar's ac­tions as wild and reck­less, Row­ley added, "That ac­tion by the prime min­is­ter has put every cit­i­zen at greater risk both and home and abroad.

"And when you asked the prime min­is­ter whether she con­sult­ed Cari­com, she said she talked to Ram­lo­gan and Grif­fith. And if we did not know be­fore, we now know we are in trou­ble be­cause our for­eign pol­i­cy is now the ran­dom thoughts of Ram­lo­gan and Grif­fith."He said T&T was in­ca­pable of fight­ing crime on Dun­can Street, Port-of-Spain, far less tack­ling the now glob­al­ly feared Isis, which has tar­get­ed non-mil­i­tary cit­i­zens of coun­tries seen as al­lies to the US with dead­ly force.

As such, Row­ley re­it­er­at­ed his state­ment that co-spon­sor­ing the res­o­lu­tion could have se­ri­ous reper­cus­sions for cit­i­zens.De­scrib­ing the move by Per­sad-Bisses­sar as "no laugh­ing mat­ter," Row­ley said there was no need for the PM to ex­pose T&T to pos­si­bly at­tacks by Isis ji­hadists in such a fash­ion, since once the res­o­lu­tion was passed by the ma­jor­i­ty, every mem­ber coun­try of the UN was bound by it, even if a mem­ber coun­ty was ab­sent when the res­o­lu­tion was passed.

"Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Unit­ed States are very close friends," he said"They are our ma­jor trad­ing part­ner but their busi­ness and their in­ter­est may not nec­es­sar­i­ly on every oc­ca­sion be our busi­ness and our in­ter­ests."He said the res­o­lu­tion was large­ly aimed at the cur­rent war in Syr­ia and Iraq, where Mus­lim ex­trem­ists of the "worst kind" were try­ing to claim ter­ri­to­ries and ter­ror­ists were try­ing to build a case for them­selves.

"And any­body who get in their way they would deal with you. I am not say­ing we are out­side that, be­cause the world is now a glob­al vil­lage, but when there is war and you take up the flag to car­ry in front of the army you are a tar­get of the op­po­si­tion," Row­ley said.He al­so clar­i­fied state­ments by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan that he was not in sup­port of the res­o­lu­tion.

Say­ing he was in ful­ly sup­port of it, Row­ley called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to say what she was think­ing when she made the de­ci­sion."I nev­er said we should not vote for the res­o­lu­tion. I think we should vote for the res­o­lu­tion. What is the think­ing to go and be a co-spon­sor of the res­o­lu­tion if you are at­tract­ing un­want­ed at­ten­tion to your­self?

"Be­cause in any case it is a de­c­la­ra­tion of war on the ter­ror­ists. It is a de­c­la­ra­tion of war against their ac­tions which are rep­re­hen­si­ble. But we have al­so to be sen­si­ble in the en­vi­ron­ment...you do what you have to do."He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar on­ly made the de­ci­sion to co-spon­sor the res­o­lu­tion so as to "pros­trate" her­self on the world stage for her "min­ions" to laud her ef­forts.