Joel Julien

A dri­ver cam­paign­ing with the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) was shot in Ch­agua­nas on Fri­day night and one of the par­ty's can­di­dates in the up­com­ing lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion has re­ceived two racist let­ters with threats to him­self and his fam­i­ly, par­ty PRO Stu­art Young said yes­ter­day.

In de­tail­ing the in­ci­dents, Young called on the peo­ple re­spon­si­ble to "cease and de­sist" from try­ing to in­cite vi­o­lence in the build-up to the elec­tion. He al­so called for Op­po­si­tion MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to "apol­o­gise and re­tract" state­ments he made on Thurs­day night urg­ing Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers to fling roti in the face of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

"We want to call up­on our na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty, and in par­tic­u­lar all of the right-think­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go, to join us at the ex­ec­u­tive lev­el of the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment and through every lev­el down to our ground lev­el, to come out and con­demn any type of vi­o­lence, any type of dis­crim­i­na­tion, any type of con­dem­na­tion, any type of at­tack what­so­ev­er, be it ver­bal or oth­er­wise, on any can­di­date and this is not alone for PNM can­di­dates," he said.

"We would con­demn any at­tack on any can­di­date for any par­ty, the MSJ (Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice), the UNC, the COP (Con­gress of the Peo­ple) any of the oth­er par­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go. We at the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment will not for a mo­ment sup­port any in­di­vid­ual in Trinidad and To­ba­go dis­crim­i­nat­ing against an­oth­er, in par­tic­u­lar any per­son who has of­fered his or her ser­vice to the wider com­mu­ni­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go, ... so please join with us in con­demn­ing this type of be­hav­iour and not let­ting it take foot in Trinidad and To­ba­go at all."

Young made the com­ments at an im­promp­tu press con­fer­ence at the PNM's Bal­isi­er House head­quar­ters called to deal with two in­ci­dents that oc­curred with­in a 24-hour pe­ri­od.

Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ash­ton Ford was al­so at the press con­fer­ence.

The first is­sue was ad­dressed was the shoot­ing of a man fol­low­ing a PNM mo­tor­cade in Ch­agua­nas on Fri­day night.

Ac­cord­ing to po­lice re­ports, Rooplal Ram­per­sad, 37, was head­ing west along the South­ern Main Road, Mon­trose, on the tray of his mu­sic truck cam­paign­ing with the PNM when he was shot. When the mu­sic truck reached near Desmond Street, Ram­per­sad com­plained of feel­ing a burn­ing sen­sa­tion on his left low­er arm. He was tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty and treat­ed.

Ram­per­sad was on his way to the PNM meet­ing at the cor­ner of La Clave and John Streets at Mon­trose when the shoot­ing oc­curred.

PC Au­gus­tus and WPC Lal­be­har­ry vis­it­ed Ram­per­sad at the Ch­agua­nas Health Fa­cil­i­ty but were how­ev­er un­able to ob­tain any use­ful in­for­ma­tion from him. The of­fi­cers al­so vis­it­ed the scene of the shoot­ing and ques­tioned sev­er­al peo­ple but to no avail.

WPC Lal­be­har­ry is con­tin­u­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

Ad­dress­ing the shoot­ing in­ci­dent, Young said, "It seems as though he was shot by a pel­let so it was not a high-pow­ered firearm or any oth­er type of firearm but rather an air ri­fle was used, and in any event we would like to say with the strongest pos­si­ble lan­guage that that is un­ac­cept­able.

"We have al­ways run very, very peace­ful cam­paigns. We are here to do ser­vice for the cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go and it is very, very dis­turb­ing for an in­ci­dent such as this to take place and we are hop­ing that this is an iso­lat­ed in­ci­dent and one of mis­chie­vous­ness that goes no fur­ther and does not at all gath­er any ground over the next week as we go to­ward a lo­cal gov­ern­ment elec­tion."

Young then re­vealed that can­di­date for St James West Roald Ramkissoon had re­ceived two anony­mous racist let­ters in his mail­box.

"These threats are craft­ed in the most vile and aw­ful type of lan­guage. Re­al­ly nasty lan­guage if I may use that ter­mi­nol­o­gy, and this again we in the PNM con­demn," Young said.

Young said the threats were re­port­ed to the St James Po­lice Sta­tion.

The two in­ci­dents had left a "bad taste in our mouth," Young said.

"Who­ev­er is be­hind these in­ci­dents, we call up­on you to im­me­di­ate­ly cease and de­sist be­cause this is re­al­ly un­ac­cept­able be­hav­iour in a Trinida­di­an mul­ti-faceted, mul­ti-cul­tur­al, mul­ti-racial so­ci­ety," he said.

He said the lan­guage in the let­ters were the "nas­ti­est type of lan­guage" and aimed at "re­al­ly try­ing to pro­mote racism, which has no place what­so­ev­er in Trinidad and To­ba­go."

Ear­li­er this week, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds of in­cit­ing vi­o­lence when he made a state­ment on a PNM plat­form at Mafek­ing Junc­tion, Ma­yaro.

Dur­ing the meet­ing, Hinds said: "I said to my col­leagues, as a younger par­lia­men­tar­i­an then, I said the UNC is bad­ly wound­ed. We need to fin­ish them out. Kill them dead. I want you to un­der­stand that on No­vem­ber 28, you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve a PNM bal­isi­er deep in­to the hearts of the wicked UNC vam­pires. Take a stake with a bal­isi­er on top and dri­ve it deep with­in their heart and fin­ish them off once and for all."