?Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Bas­deo Pan­day is call­ing on cit­i­zens to stand up in de­fence of T&T as it is un­der threat.

In his mes­sage to mark the ob­ser­vance of this coun­try's 47th an­niver­sary as an in­de­pen­dent na­tion, Pan­day said the threat was not com­ing from for­eign in­vaders or the colo­nial mas­ters, but those re­spon­si­ble for the gov­er­nance of T&T. Pan­day said the "foun­da­tion of our free­dom is un­der at­tack." He said over the past eight years, (Prime Min­is­ter) Patrick Man­ning has led an as­sault on the fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights and in­de­pen­dent in­sti­tu­tions in this na­tion.

Pan­day said Man­ning had "di­rect­ly blocked pro­mo­tions of pub­lic ser­vants and has at­tempt­ed to bul­ly oth­ers in­to sub­mis­sion." He said those ex­cess­es have been wit­nessed in the me­dia, adding a mul­ti­ple of those ex­cess­es have been suc­cess­ful­ly chal­lenged in the court. Pan­day said the coun­try's de­scent in­to tyran­ny "is fur­ther un­der­scored by Patrick Man­ning's bla­tant dis­re­gard for the will of cit­i­zens of this na­tion by his ob­ses­sion with build­ing alu­mini­um smelters, the Bri­an Lara Sta­di­um and pala­tial struc­tures for him­self, all at the ex­pense of the strug­gling tax­pay­er."

He de­scribed as po­lit­i­cal gym­nas­tics, al­leged moves to pre­vent the Uff Com­mis­sion of En­quiry from con­clud­ing its in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the lo­cal con­struc­tion sec­tor. Pan­day said the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion, the po­lice, the ju­di­cia­ry , the of­fices of the Chief Jus­tice and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions all con­tin­ue to crum­ble un­der the on­slaught of the Gov­ern­ment. Pan­day stressed that in the light of these de­vel­op­ments, cit­i­zens must once again re­vive that pa­tri­ot­ic spir­it to main­tain their free­dom, sov­er­eign­ty and fun­da­men­tal hu­man rights.