Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) chair­man Mar­vin Gon­za­les has brand­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar a "des­per­ate hyp­ocrite," ac­cus­ing her of turn­ing a blind eye to al­leged wrong­do­ing with­in her own ad­min­is­tra­tion while con­demn­ing crit­ics of the Gov­ern­ment over last week's con­tro­ver­sial protest linked to Ka­ia Sealy.

Gon­za­les' re­marks came in re­sponse to a state­ment is­sued by Per­sad-Bisses­sar on Sat­ur­day in which she con­demned in­di­vid­u­als she claimed were sup­port­ing calls for vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs to unite and at­tack law en­force­ment of­fi­cers.

"It is ap­palling to all law-abid­ing cit­i­zens that the PNM, some union lead­ers, en­ter­tain­ers, pub­lic­i­ty farm­ers and po­lit­i­cal and race grifters are sup­port­ing pro­test­ers who are call­ing for the uni­fi­ca­tion of vi­o­lent crim­i­nal gangs to at­tack and kill law en­force­ment of­fi­cers," the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter's com­ments fol­lowed last Wednes­day's protest con­nect­ed to the po­lice-in­volved killing of Joshua Sama­roo and crim­i­nal charges laid against Sealy.

Re­spond­ing yes­ter­day, Gon­za­les ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of at­tempt­ing to dis­tract from what he de­scribed as her Gov­ern­ment's fail­ures in deal­ing with crime and gang ac­tiv­i­ty.

"The Prime Min­is­ter con­tin­ues to live in an al­ter­na­tive re­al­i­ty that is trapped be­tween her Gov­ern­ment's in­com­pe­tence and her in­abil­i­ty to con­tain ris­ing mur­ders and gang ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Gon­za­les said.

He claimed Per­sad-Bisses­sar had no moral au­thor­i­ty to lec­ture oth­ers about crim­i­nal­i­ty while, ac­cord­ing to him, sur­round­ing her­self with in­di­vid­u­als fac­ing se­ri­ous al­le­ga­tions.

"Her Min­is­ter of De­fence was seen in videos and pic­tures with an al­leged gang leader in East Trinidad and her Cab­i­net has per­sons on bail fac­ing crim­i­nal charges. She is the up­hold­er of wrong­do­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go as well as a des­per­ate hyp­ocrite," Gon­za­les said.

The Op­po­si­tion chair­man al­so crit­i­cised sev­er­al ap­point­ments made by the Gov­ern­ment, al­leg­ing that they re­flect­ed dou­ble stan­dards in its ap­proach to ac­count­abil­i­ty.

"She re­ward­ed the ar­chi­tects of Life­S­port by her sen­a­to­r­i­al ap­point­ments as well as ap­point­ed per­sons on crim­i­nal charges to key State boards like NGC," Gon­za­les claimed.

He fur­ther ref­er­enced for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan.

"Anand Ram­lo­gan is still on crim­i­nal charges and is the ben­e­fi­cia­ry of mil­lions of dol­lars in State briefs via the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's Of­fice and State en­ter­pris­es," Gon­za­les said.

Gon­za­les ar­gued that such ac­tions un­der­mined the Gov­ern­ment's at­tempts to por­tray it­self as com­mit­ted to law and or­der.

"All of these de­ci­sions re­flect that the biggest and the most prof­itable gang op­er­at­ing in Trinidad and To­ba­go is the UNC," he al­leged.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar's orig­i­nal state­ment was is­sued amid height­ened po­lit­i­cal ten­sions over the protest and con­cerns raised by the Gov­ern­ment about the rhetoric used by some par­tic­i­pants and sup­port­ers.

The Prime Min­is­ter praised law en­force­ment of­fi­cials for their han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion and warned against any at­tempts to en­cour­age vi­o­lence against mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice.

Her com­ments al­so came days af­ter po­lice in­tro­duced a se­ries of no-protest zones un­der the cur­rent State of Emer­gency reg­u­la­tions, re­strict­ing demon­stra­tions with­in 500 me­tres of sev­er­al gov­ern­ment build­ings and na­tion­al in­sti­tu­tions.

The re­stric­tions have since sparked crit­i­cism from Op­po­si­tion politi­cians, trade unions and le­gal com­men­ta­tors, who have ques­tioned whether the mea­sures rep­re­sent a dis­pro­por­tion­ate lim­i­ta­tion on cit­i­zens' con­sti­tu­tion­al rights.