Gail Alexan­der

It is com­mend­able that Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning has con­demned the Hon­duras coup, for­mer NAR min­is­ter Joseph Toney says.

Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning, in a state­ment hours af­ter the event on Sun­day, con­demned the un­con­sti­tu­tion­al over­throw of Hon­duran Pres­i­dent, Manuel Ze­laya. Man­ning called for "the im­me­di­ate resti­tu­tion of the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly-elect­ed" Hon­duran leader.

Man­ning al­so called for Ze­laya to be al­lowed to re­turn to his coun­try, and urged all par­ties in­volved to use the mech­a­nisms with­in the In­ter-Amer­i­can sys­tem to re­solve their dif­fer­ences." Man­ning said the T&T Gov­ern­ment would con­tin­ue to take a keen in­ter­est in the de­vel­op­ments in this mat­ter in the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS). Toney, how­ev­er, com­ment­ing on Man­ning's state­ment, added: "It's won­der­ful that Mr Man­ning has con­demned that coup so force­ful­ly and un­re­served­ly. I have not read any­where that he ever con­demned T&T's own coup at­tempt in 1990.

"I will im­me­di­ate­ly apol­o­gise (if he did so). I have heard when Mr Man­ning was asked about the 1990 coup at­tempt, he re­port­ed­ly said: 'That was a mat­ter be­tween the NAR and the Mus­limeen'. "And I know that for­mer NAR min­is­ter Sel­by Wil­son, a Red House hostage, had tried des­per­ate­ly while in there to get Man­ning to con­demn the coup, and he has nev­er agreed to ap­peals to have an in­quiry in­to the 1990 at­tempt, so it's great that he can con­demn the coup in Hon­duras so very well now."