Gail Alexan­der

With two COP lead­ers ap­pear­ing on the Di­vali plat­forms of two UNC MPs with­in days of each oth­er, es­tranged UNC deputy leader Jack Warn­er is call­ing a No­vem­ber 15 round­table of all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, in­clud­ing UNC's Bas­deo Pan­day, for for­ward mo­men­tum on uni­ty.

"Rec­on­cil­i­a­tion is long over­due, but Mr Pan­day is the ob­sta­cle," Warn­er said from Egypt yes­ter­day. "I'm pre­pared to work around, un­der and over him, but uni­ty, like the waves on the shore, can't be stopped. We'll use all meth­ods, in­clud­ing the Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions, to achieve it," Warn­er added. Warn­er spoke af­ter COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an agreed to speak at Warn­er's Ch­agua­nas West Di­vali func­tion to­mor­row and af­ter COP deputy leader Prakash Ra­mad­har ap­peared at UNC deputy leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's Di­vali cel­e­bra­tions in Siparia Thurs­day night. Ra­mad­har said he had ac­cept­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar's in­vi­ta­tion and ap­peared in a per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty since he had known Per­sad-Bisses­sar many years. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who al­so said she in­vit­ed Ra­mad­har as a per­son­al friend of long stand­ing, point­ed to the mes­sage in her Di­vali speech.

She re­it­er­at­ed, "There is lot of dark­ness in T&T at this time, but if we light one or two deyas it won't dis­pel the dark­ness. Nor would it, if we light thou­sands and they are scat­tered." "So we have to light deyas to­geth­er and unite them all so we can make a great light to re­move the dark­ness," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said, adding that her anal­o­gy was clear. Per­sad-Bisses­sar heads a UNC team to seek uni­ty with COP. She had ap­peared at a COP ral­ly in June, but uni­ty talks have not start­ed. In­stead COP leader Win­ston Dook­er­an be­gan speak­ing with Warn­er. Yes­ter­day, Dook­er­an said he was aware Ra­mad­har par­tic­i­pat­ed in Per­sad-Bisses­sar's func­tion. At 3 pm, yes­ter­day Dook­er­an said his sec­re­tary had re­ceived a let­ter from UNC. He said he had not yet read it. UNC vice chair­man Vas­ant Bharath con­firmed UNC had for­mal­ly in­vit­ed Dook­er­an to speak at UNC's Oc­to­ber 26 Con­gress. Warn­er, re­turn­ing home to­day, said Per­sad-Bisses­sar was em­u­lat­ing his move to have Dook­er­an ap­pear on his Ch­agua­nas West plat­form. Warn­er said his im­me­di­ate move, apart from ap­proach­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Bharath, in­volves call­ing par­ty lead­ers and UNC MPs to a uni­ty round­table in No­vem­ber.

?Bas luke­warm on moves

�2 UNC po­lit­i­cal leader Bas­deo Pan­day said, "I'm not a po­lit­i­cal Dr Kevorkian to ad­vise peo­ple how to com­mit sui­cide. Peo­ple have a right to com­mit sui­cide in their own way po­lit­i­cal­ly or oth­er­wise. One thing the PNM hasn't re­moved yet is the free­dom to join a par­ty of your choice or ap­pear on plat­forms of your choice. I agree with those free­doms, so peo­ple are en­ti­tled to do what they want."

�2 UNC vice chair­man Vas­ant Bharath, "The UNC ini­ti­at­ed all the 'reach­ing out' cur­rent­ly oc­cur­ring. But all ini­tia­tives must go to our ex­ec­u­tive. I'm not in a po­si­tion to ac­cept an in­vi­ta­tion from an­oth­er par­ty to speak on their plat­form or at­tend a round­table with­out con­sult­ing UNC first."