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Wednesday, May 28, 2025

St Lucia opposition leader, Kamla agree to form regional opposition group

by

Dareece Polo
449 days ago
20240305
St Lucia Opposition leader Allan Chastanet speaks at the UNC's fourth Anti-crime Town Hall Meeting in Sangre Grande on Monday.

St Lucia Opposition leader Allan Chastanet speaks at the UNC's fourth Anti-crime Town Hall Meeting in Sangre Grande on Monday.

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St Lu­cia’s Op­po­si­tion Leader Al­lan Chas­tanet says a plan is be­ing de­vel­oped to es­tab­lish a sin­gle body of op­po­si­tion lead­ers from coun­tries across the Caribbean.

Chas­tanet was speak­ing at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) fourth An­ti-crime Town Hall meet­ing at the SWA­HA Hin­du Col­lege in San­gre Grande on Mon­day night.

As he ad­dressed those who turned up at the meet­ing, Chas­tanet said the idea was posed by UNC leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, whom he de­scribed as a vi­sion­ary.

“We are go­ing to take this voice now to the re­gion and form a col­lec­tive group of lead­ers of the op­po­si­tions and to make sure that the voic­es of the lead­ers of the op­po­si­tion in the Caribbean re­gion is heard by the (Caribbean De­vel­op­ment Bank) CDB, by the World Bank and by Cari­com and we’re no longer gonna be de­nied the voice in rep­re­sent­ing all the peo­ple who did not vote for the gov­ern­ment and to make sure that that voice is lis­tened to and giv­en a seat at the ta­ble.”

High­light­ing the is­sue of crime across the re­gion, Chas­tanet said coun­tries should not treat it as a na­tion­al prob­lem. He re­mind­ed that the gangs which are cre­at­ing the most prob­lems are re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al net­works with bet­ter weapons and tech­nol­o­gy.

“We must pro­tect each oth­er’s bor­ders to be able to pro­tect our­selves,” he said.

He urged lead­ers across the re­gion to fund a Re­gion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Sys­tem through­out Cari­com. The RSS ex­ists for coun­tries in the East­ern Caribbean, in­clud­ing An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, Bar­ba­dos, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, Guyana, St Kitts and Nevis, St Lu­cia and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Chas­tanet said this is es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant, as Caribbean states are prepar­ing to take leg­is­la­tion to var­i­ous Par­lia­ments to ease re­gion­al trav­el through the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket and Econ­o­my (CSME).

“I am call­ing up­on the lead­ers to­day, I am ask­ing them to do the right thing now. Al­low the tax to go through and let us fund a re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty sys­tem that is go­ing to be to pro­tect all of us," he said.

"I want to know that the bright­est and the best po­lice of­fi­cers in each one of the coun­tries will now be work­ing for that re­gion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion. I want to know that there is an en­ti­ty that can au­dit our own po­lice forces and give them guid­ance and I want to know that not on­ly the bor­ders of St Lu­cia are be­ing pro­tect­ed but the bor­ders of all oth­er Cari­com coun­tries have formed a net around our­selves to keep the scourge out.”

He al­so begged cit­i­zens to find em­pa­thy for vic­tims of crime be­cause it’s on­ly a mat­ter of time be­fore it hits home.

“I am plead­ing with all of you, open your hearts and feel the pain of the peo­ple who are be­ing af­fect­ed be­cause to­day it’s them, to­mor­row it is go­ing to be you. You will be the moth­er say­ing he was a good boy. Don’t wait for it to hap­pen be­fore you find out how lone­ly the world is and that no­body re­al­ly cares.”


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