Amid continuing political row over racist rhetoric

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has dis­missed what she de­scribed as ef­forts by “race grifters” and oth­ers to spread racist pro­pa­gan­da, urg­ing sup­port­ers not to be dis­tract­ed by in­flam­ma­to­ry com­men­tary.

In a strong­ly word­ed re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, the Prime Min­is­ter said those pro­mot­ing racial di­vi­sion should be ig­nored.

“Don’t both­er with the race grifters, de­ranged com­men­ta­tors, ‘has been’ and ‘nev­er was’ politi­cians and clin­i­cal­ly de­pressed Face­book trolls who are push­ing racist pro­pa­gan­da. Let stu­pid peo­ple wal­low in their stu­pid­i­ty by them­selves. Live your life with so much love and light that noth­ing will ever both­er your in­ner peace,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments come against the back­drop of an es­ca­lat­ing po­lit­i­cal dis­pute over race and pub­lic dis­course, fol­low­ing the cir­cu­la­tion of a leaked au­dio record­ing al­leged­ly cap­tur­ing a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween busi­ness­woman Star Sab­ga and her niece Genevieve Hadeed.

The record­ing, which has been wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed on so­cial me­dia, fea­tures Sab­ga mak­ing a se­ries of racist re­marks and per­son­al at­tacks di­rect­ed at the Prime Min­is­ter, while call­ing for her re­moval from of­fice.

The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has since con­firmed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the leaked record­ing, which forms part of the State’s ev­i­dence in the con­spir­a­cy to mur­der mat­ter in­volv­ing the Hadeeds and Sab­ga.

The is­sue has al­so prompt­ed crit­i­cism from for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, who ac­cused Per­sad-Bisses­sar of hypocrisy over her re­cent con­dem­na­tion of racist rhetoric.

In a re­cent state­ment, Row­ley ar­gued that while the Prime Min­is­ter now de­nounces racial at­tacks and big­otry di­rect­ed at her, she had pre­vi­ous­ly used sim­i­lar lan­guage against him dur­ing her time as op­po­si­tion leader.

Row­ley point­ed to a past oc­ca­sion when Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred to him as “an Oreo in the ser­vice of the one per cent.”

“Sur­prise! The Prime Min­is­ter thought that big­otry and racist re­marks were re­served on­ly for her use,” Row­ley said.

He fur­ther ques­tioned whether Per­sad-Bisses­sar be­lieved such re­marks were her “birthright,” while now por­tray­ing her­self as a vic­tim of racial at­tacks.

The ex­change marks the lat­est es­ca­la­tion in a bit­ter po­lit­i­cal war of words, with both the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion ac­cus­ing each oth­er of con­tribut­ing to racial di­vi­sion in the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal land­scape.

De­spite the crit­i­cism, Per­sad-Bisses­sar urged sup­port­ers not to en­gage with those seek­ing to sow racial dis­cord, in­stead en­cour­ag­ing them to fo­cus on “love and light” and to pro­tect their “in­ner peace.”