DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

In a rare di­ver­gence with­in the Gov­ern­ment’s ranks, a sit­ting sen­a­tor has pub­licly dis­tanced him­self from the Prime Min­is­ter’s po­si­tion on the es­ca­lat­ing con­flict in the Mid­dle East.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar en­dorsed the US-Is­raeli strikes against Iran over the week­end, a move that has trig­gered re­newed fight­ing across the re­gion and drawn mixed re­ac­tions at home.

But Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid has re­ject­ed what he de­scribed as the ac­tions of the “Zion­ist regime,” mark­ing an un­usu­al break in tone from with­in the ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Nakhid, who is Mus­lim and has fam­i­ly in the re­gion, ini­tial­ly paused when asked to share his views, in­di­cat­ing that he keeps it to him­self.

He, how­ev­er, said he had shared his con­cerns pri­vate­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter and that she has long been aware of his views.

“You think the ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar is not aware of my views on these things? She’s aware of every­thing. And she’s very re­spect­ful and has al­ways been with me, very re­spect­ful. So when, as if you no­ticed, when some­one came in­to Trinidad, I was not there, she had no prob­lem what­so­ev­er. Don’t wor­ry, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar knows every­thing about every­one, and she re­spects how we feel, but she has her du­ty to run the coun­try as she sees fit, and I fol­low my leader.”

It is be­lieved Nakhid was re­fer­ring to the Ju­ly 3–4, 2025, vis­it by In­dia’s Prime Min­is­ter Naren­dra Mo­di.

Mo­di has faced sus­tained crit­i­cism from rights groups over the treat­ment of In­dia’s Mus­lim mi­nor­i­ty.

Mus­lims in In­dia, num­ber­ing more than 200 mil­lion, have re­port­ed in­creas­ing mar­gin­al­i­sa­tion and dis­crim­i­na­tion amid the rise of Hin­du na­tion­al­ism un­der the Bharatiya Jana­ta Par­ty.

De­spite his ob­jec­tions to de­vel­op­ments in the Mid­dle East, Nakhid in­sist­ed that his dis­agree­ment does not ex­tend to the gov­ern­ment’s broad­er pro­gramme.

“My on­ly con­flict is how the world has al­lowed a Zion­ist en­ti­ty, a geno­ci­dal Zion­ist en­ti­ty, to take con­trol of Amer­i­ca. That’s my con­flict there. But as far as my ob­jec­tive, which is to change the lives of Trinidad and To­ba­go, the peo­ple that have been left in pover­ty, squan­der­ma­nia by the PNM, I have no con­flict what­so­ev­er with my Prime Min­is­ter or with the par­ty.”

He al­so ad­dressed the is­sue of Trinida­di­ans strand­ed in the Mid­dle East af­ter trav­el­ling there with hus­bands who joined ISIL (ISIS) and were lat­er killed.

“I know it’s be­ing dis­cussed. She has ex­pressed her views about that. She wants to bring them home, es­pe­cial­ly the chil­dren. I know they’re work­ing on it. I have been con­tact­ed by the Unit­ed Na­tions, who, they’re aware that I have con­tacts on that side, and I told them that I’m avail­able for any sup­port that they would need.”

Ef­forts to ob­tain com­ment from his Mus­lim col­leagues, Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein and Deputy House Speak­er Dr Aiy­na Ali, were un­suc­cess­ful.