Rowley calls for end to SoE, dismissal of ministers

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr. Kei­th Row­ley has called on the Gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly end the State of Emer­gency and dis­miss both the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, ac­cus­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tion of abus­ing its au­thor­i­ty and act­ing with­out ev­i­dence.

In a Face­book post, Row­ley sharply crit­i­cised Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, ac­cus­ing her Gov­ern­ment of be­ing “spite­ful, vin­dic­tive and in­com­pe­tent in the ex­treme.”

The for­mer prime min­is­ter al­so re­spond­ed to a pre­vi­ous re­mark by Per­sad-Bisses­sar in which she re­ferred to him as an “Oreo.”

“The Prime Min­is­ter thought that big­otry and racist re­marks were re­served on­ly for her use,” Row­ley wrote, adding, “When she called me an Oreo in the ser­vice of the one per cent, what did she think that was, her birthright?”

Row­ley claimed the Gov­ern­ment had failed to jus­ti­fy ac­tions tak­en un­der the State of Emer­gency, par­tic­u­lar­ly fol­low­ing what he de­scribed as an “em­bar­rass­ing col­lapse” be­fore the Privy Coun­cil.

He ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of “hid­ing un­der a state of emer­gency in or­der to abuse the ma­chin­ery of the state as they try to set­tle per­son­al and po­lit­i­cal scores against cit­i­zens.”

Ques­tion­ing re­cent com­ments by the Prime Min­is­ter about await­ing de­vel­op­ments in “for­eign ju­ris­dic­tions,” Row­ley said the Gov­ern­ment had spent a month mak­ing al­le­ga­tions but had failed to lay crim­i­nal charges.

“What is the Prime Min­is­ter say­ing, that she and her gov­ern­ment for one whole month have been on the at­tack with­out ev­i­dence and could not lay a charge or de­fend their po­si­tion of jail­ing peo­ple with­out charge in our coun­try?” he asked.

Row­ley ar­gued that if the Gov­ern­ment pos­sess­es ev­i­dence of crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing, it should pur­sue le­gal ac­tion “de­ci­sive­ly with­in the law” rather than re­ly­ing on un­spec­i­fied for­eign au­thor­i­ties.

He fur­ther al­leged that the ad­min­is­tra­tion was com­pro­mis­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s sov­er­eign­ty by seek­ing as­sis­tance from ex­ter­nal ju­ris­dic­tions for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es.

“The gov­ern­ment must end the state of emer­gency NOW!” Row­ley wrote. He al­so called on the Prime Min­is­ter to dis­miss the Min­is­ter of Home­land Se­cu­ri­ty and the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al if she hoped to “re­store any re­spect from the right-think­ing cit­i­zens of Trinidad and To­ba­go.”