AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – Pol­i­tics

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley is call­ing on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to re­veal how many cit­i­zens her Gov­ern­ment has re­port­ed to Unit­ed States au­thor­i­ties with rec­om­men­da­tions that their US visas be re­voked.

In a Face­book post, Row­ley al­so chal­lenged Per­sad-Bisses­sar to ex­plain the grounds on which she and oth­ers had pre­vi­ous­ly called for the US visas of him­self and for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young to be can­celled.

Row­ley’s com­ments come amid re­newed pub­lic dis­cus­sion over US visa re­vo­ca­tions and warn­ings about the cir­cum­stances that could re­sult in peo­ple los­ing their abil­i­ty to trav­el to the Unit­ed States.

He ac­cused the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) lead­er­ship and peo­ple close to the par­ty of us­ing the is­sue of US visas to in­tim­i­date cit­i­zens.

“In re­cent times, the UNC lead­er­ship and oth­ers close to them have been warn­ing and threat­en­ing the cit­i­zens about los­ing their US visas,” Row­ley said.

He point­ed to an Au­gust 10 state­ment from the US De­part­ment of State which, ac­cord­ing to him, out­lined sev­er­al rea­sons for visa re­vo­ca­tions, in­clud­ing vi­o­lat­ing the terms of a US visa, com­mit­ting crimes, call­ing for vi­o­lence against US cit­i­zens, de­fraud­ing Amer­i­cans, abus­ing the im­mi­gra­tion sys­tem and en­dan­ger­ing na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

Row­ley said the clar­i­fi­ca­tion from US au­thor­i­ties was wel­comed.

“I want to thank the US au­thor­i­ties for go­ing pub­lic to tell the trau­ma­tized cit­i­zen­ry in this coun­try the con­di­tions un­der which visas are re­voked,” he said.

Against that back­drop, Row­ley ques­tioned the ba­sis for pre­vi­ous calls for ac­tion against him and Young.

“To­day I want to ask Mrs. Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and all the oth­ers who made this call and even wrote the US Gov­ern­ment call­ing for the visas of both Stu­art Young and Row­ley to be can­celled: which of these of­fences were they guilty of?” he asked.

Row­ley al­so turned his at­ten­tion to what he de­scribed as a close friend and “mes­sen­ger” of the Prime Min­is­ter, claim­ing that the in­di­vid­ual’s US visa had been can­celled be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­turned to of­fice.

He chal­lenged the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­close which of the cir­cum­stances out­lined by US au­thor­i­ties had re­sult­ed in that per­son los­ing their visa.

Row­ley then pressed Per­sad-Bisses­sar for wider dis­clo­sure about whether oth­er cit­i­zens had been re­port­ed to US au­thor­i­ties.

“Al­so, is the Prime Min­is­ter pre­pared to tell the coun­try, be­sides Row­ley and Young, how many oth­er cit­i­zens she and her Gov­ern­ment have re­port­ed to the US Gov­ern­ment with a rec­om­men­da­tion to have their visas can­celled?” he asked.