Hosein calls for peace during Ramadan as Iran war escalates

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

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Barataria/San Juan MP and Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sad­dam Ho­sein says he is pray­ing for Mus­lims who are “op­pressed” and is hop­ing for peace as the US-Is­rael war with Iran con­tin­ues.

Speak­ing with re­porters out­side of Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Ho­sein spoke about the war af­ter the Gov­ern­ment pub­licly backed the US move to launch airstrikes on Iran. Ho­sein said the hu­man­i­tar­i­an toll of the war has been deeply trou­bling, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the holy month of Ra­madan.

“So, as I said, my heart and my prayer are with all of the Mus­lims through­out the world that are op­pressed, my broth­ers and sis­ters all over the world. In fact, I would have spo­ken out on sev­er­al mat­ters in the past about what took place in Pales­tine, our broth­ers in Gaza,” Ho­sein said.

“I just hope that this en­tire sit­u­a­tion can end in peace. We’re in a very holy, aus­pi­cious pe­ri­od of Ra­madan, and I pray for peace through­out the world. As I said, my view may not change the out­come of the war, but my prayer cer­tain­ly can in some way im­pact all of us col­lec­tive­ly with the suf­fer­ing that has tak­en place in the world.”

Ho­sein’s com­ments come less than a week af­ter Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor David Nakhid pub­licly dis­tanced him­self from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sup­port of the US–Is­raeli at­tack on Iran.

Nakhid said he had al­ready shared his con­cerns pri­vate­ly with the Prime Min­is­ter and not­ed that she has long been aware of his views on the is­sue.

“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,” Nakhid said.

The war be­gan last month when the Unit­ed States and Is­rael launched co­or­di­nat­ed strikes on mul­ti­ple cities across Iran, dra­mat­i­cal­ly es­ca­lat­ing ten­sions in the Mid­dle East. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed dur­ing the open­ing wave of airstrikes.

Mean­while, Ho­sein said T&T’s sov­er­eign­ty is not un­der threat fol­low­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s lat­est part­ner­ship with the Unit­ed States.

The is­sue has sparked de­bate af­ter Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar an­nounced on Sun­day that T&T had joined the Amer­i­ca’s Counter-Car­tel Coali­tion (AC­CC), a US-led re­gion­al mil­i­tary and se­cu­ri­ty al­liance aimed at com­bat­ing transna­tion­al crime.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the de­ci­sion was tak­en in the in­ter­est of re­gion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“It is in the very best in­ter­est of the en­tire Cari­com, the whole re­gion,” the Prime Min­is­ter stat­ed.

Ho­sein de­fend­ed the move, not­ing that T&T has long main­tained close re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States on trade and se­cu­ri­ty mat­ters.

“The US has al­ways been his­tor­i­cal­ly a very strong trad­ing part­ner with T&T,” Ho­sein said. “In fact, we have been work­ing very close­ly, not with on­ly trade alone, but on sev­er­al mat­ters of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.”

But the Gov­ern­ment’s ap­proach has drawn crit­i­cism from the Op­po­si­tion.

For­mer min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne ques­tioned the lev­el of trans­paren­cy sur­round­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s re­cent en­gage­ments with US of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing in­ter­ac­tions with US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and the Unit­ed States South­ern Com­mand.

“They’ve pro­vid­ed no trans­paren­cy what­so­ev­er,” Browne said. “They’re call­ing every­thing a meet­ing, a one-on-one meet­ing with Pres­i­dent Trump and a meet­ing with South­ern Com­mand. But the ev­i­dence we’ve seen in­di­cates more hand­shakes, cour­tesy calls, pho­to op­por­tu­ni­ties and brief vis­its.”

He con­tend­ed that for­mal meet­ings should pro­duce records and clear out­comes.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Faris Al-Rawi said col­lab­o­ra­tion with the US on an­ti-drug op­er­a­tions is not new for T&T.

He not­ed that suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments have main­tained op­er­a­tional re­la­tion­ships with the US and even Venezuela on bor­der se­cu­ri­ty.