Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­tract her state­ment sup­port­ing the Unit­ed States’ vi­o­lent killing of drug traf­fick­ers.

In a Face­book post to­day, Beck­les de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s words as “reck­less, dis­grace­ful and in­con­sis­tent with the oath she has tak­en to up­hold the Con­sti­tu­tion and the law.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar yes­ter­day de­clared in a What­sApp mes­sage that the Unit­ed States should “kill them all vi­o­lent­ly.”

Beck­les said the Prime Min­is­ter had “fall­en in­to a pat­tern of is­su­ing What­sApp mes­sages to avoid prop­er me­dia scruti­ny and an ap­pro­pri­ate de­gree of pub­lic clar­i­ty.”

She warned that the lan­guage was “com­plete­ly un­be­com­ing of our head of gov­ern­ment who is ex­pect­ed to be more pru­dent in her lan­guage.”

The Op­po­si­tion Leader ar­gued that Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s “in­flam­ma­to­ry so­cial me­dia out­put” could draw the coun­try in­to un­nec­es­sary con­flict" and can put our le­git­i­mate fish­er­folks, off­shore work­ers, and oth­er work­ers in the mar­itime space at in­creased risk.”

Beck­les ques­tioned whether CARI­COM had been con­sult­ed be­fore what she called “un­prece­dent­ed align­ment with for­eign mil­i­tary ac­tion.”

“Giv­en the Prime Min­is­ter’s scant re­gard for CARI­COM, we must ques­tion whether she en­gaged in any con­sul­ta­tions with our CARI­COM col­leagues be­fore this new round of pub­lic cheer­lead­ing for for­eign mil­i­tary ac­tion,” she wrote.

That con­cern fol­lows Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ear­li­er de­c­la­ra­tion that she was “not con­sult­ing CARI­COM” on mat­ters re­lat­ed to for­eign mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions.

She added that the Prime Min­is­ter must al­so clar­i­fy “the lo­ca­tion of the ves­sel in ques­tion” and whether there was any co­or­di­na­tion with the Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard.

While stress­ing that the Op­po­si­tion sup­ports “strong and de­ci­sive ac­tion against drug traf­fick­ing,” Beck­les said it “must be law­ful, co­or­di­nat­ed, and re­spect­ful of our na­tion­al val­ues and in­ter­na­tion­al oblig­a­tions.”

“We there­fore call on the Prime Min­is­ter to im­me­di­ate­ly re­tract her reck­less state­ment, to ap­pear be­fore the me­dia, and to pro­vide the pub­lic with prop­er an­swers,” Beck­les wrote.

She re­mind­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar of her role as CARI­COM’s lead on re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty in the qua­si cab­i­net, say­ing it was trou­bling that “none of her com­men­tary since the most re­cent de­ploy­ment of for­eign troops re­flects any com­mit­ment to ful­fil Trinidad and To­ba­go’s co­or­di­na­tion oblig­a­tions in such re­gard.”

“Trinidad and To­ba­go de­serves lead­er­ship that is strong, wise, and re­spon­si­ble. We can­not and ought not to sup­port im­pul­sive, in­flam­ma­to­ry, dan­ger­ous rhetoric that can un­der­mine our se­cu­ri­ty and cred­i­bil­i­ty,” Beck­les said.