Gail Alexan­der

Con­trac­tor Emile Elias, PNM leader Kei­th Row­ley, PNM Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds and PP Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal came in for stiff ver­bal blows from farm­ers and union lead­ers dur­ing yes­ter­day's farm­ers' demon­stra­tion. Elias had crit­i­cised farm­ers' ac­tion while Hinds and the PNM had called for Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath - who sup­port­ed farm­ers - to be cut from the Cab­i­net for his ac­tion.

But speak­ing dur­ing the demon­stra­tion at Wood­ford Square, Agri­cul­tur­al So­ci­ety of Trinidad and To­ba­go's (ASTT) pres­i­dent, Dhanoo Sookoo, said:

"Mr Elias' busi­ness is about hous­ing and farm­ers' busi­ness is about grow­ing food. "Mr Elias isn't stand­ing in our way and the way of the peo­ple of this coun­try to get lo­cal healthy food. The more we im­port food, the more un­healthy, so mind your busi­ness Mr Elias and we'll mind ours." OW­TU pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get, speak­ing at the con­clu­sion of the march through the cap­i­tal, slammed the PP Gov­ern­ment.

He said the ad­min­is­tra­tion, like the UNC, felt it could "do what they want as they have farm­ers' sup­port."

He added: "The same thing, like Patrick Man­ning... do­ing what he want to Laven­tille and so too (Roodal) Mooni­lal, as­sum­ing he can do what he wants since he had some farm­ers' sup­port.

"This call by Hinds and Row­ley to de­rail this strug­gle and all for Bharath's res­ig­na­tion... Hinds and Row­ley have no moral au­thor­i­ty to speak on any is­sue re­gard­ing farm­ers." Ro­get said: "If you (Row­ley) and Hinds feel this is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for the PNM to do as the UNC and PP did - to ride the backs of farm­ers in­to pow­er - think again. "The PNM and Mooni­lal's pol­i­cy for hous­ing is one and the same. Every­one sees that now." He said "many of them" in Gov­ern­ment were "not do­ing what they are paid to do or were com­mit­ted to PP's man­i­festo." Ro­get said: "Watch your ad­vis­ers Madame Prime Min­is­ter. They ad­vis­ing you in­cor­rect­ly. Big busi­ness ad­vised Patrick Man­ning. Mooni­lal has got­ten cocky and ar­ro­gant as some­body says he is heir ap­par­ent.

"But by his ac­tion last week Mooni­lal has dis­qual­i­fied him­self from the job of PM. If he does this now, what will he do when he be­comes prime min­is­ter? Walk on us?" Ro­get said Mooni­lal could no longer cred­i­bly be in the busi­ness of serv­ing the peo­ple. BIG­WU pres­i­dent, Vin­cent Cabr­era, con­demned Mooni­lal, whom he said had a labour and op­po­si­tion back­ground. Cabr­era sup­port­ed Bharath.ASTT's Sookoo praised Bharath, say­ing: "He's the on­ly true min­is­ter in this Gov­ern­ment. He has shown what new pol­i­tics is about." Sookoo said farm­ers were stick­ing to their four de­mands when they meet with the min­is­ters this af­ter­noon. (GA)