Moonilal praises PM’s powerful speech; Browne criticises delivery

Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

[email protected]

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s ad­dress to the 81st Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) has drawn sharply con­trast­ing re­ac­tions from gov­ern­ment and op­po­si­tion fig­ures.

Mo­ments af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­clud­ed her pre­sen­ta­tion in New York, Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) deputy po­lit­i­cal leader and Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal praised the speech, de­scrib­ing it as a strong rep­re­sen­ta­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­ter­ests on the in­ter­na­tion­al stage.

Mooni­lal said he lis­tened to the ad­dress with “great pride” and con­grat­u­lat­ed the Prime Min­is­ter for what he de­scribed as an “in­sight­ful, pow­er­ful and com­pas­sion­ate” pre­sen­ta­tion.

“As a deputy po­lit­i­cal leader of the great Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and Min­is­ter of Gov­ern­ment, it is with great pride that I lis­tened mo­ments ago to the in­sight­ful, pow­er­ful and com­pas­sion­ate de­liv­ery to the 81st Ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA) by our in­ter­na­tion­al­ly re­spect­ed Prime Min­is­ter,” Mooni­lal said.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar high­light­ed is­sues of sig­nif­i­cance to both Trinidad and To­ba­go and the wider in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty.

“The peo­ple of Oropouche East join the rest of our grate­ful na­tion in con­grat­u­lat­ing our Prime Min­is­ter on this bold state­ment of deep and en­dur­ing con­cern on a host of ur­gent na­tion­al and glob­al chal­lenges,” he said.

Mooni­lal al­so con­tend­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter’s ap­pear­ance at the UN en­hanced the coun­try’s stand­ing abroad.

“Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar SC has once again brought pride and re­spect to Trinidad and To­ba­go at the seat of the com­mu­ni­ty of na­tions,” he stat­ed.

He high­light­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s em­pha­sis on democ­ra­cy, se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty, de­scrib­ing these as hall­marks of her pub­lic ser­vice and ad­vo­ca­cy.

“Her pas­sion­ate com­mit­ment to democ­ra­cy, se­cu­ri­ty and pros­per­i­ty is a hall­mark of her per­son­al and pub­lic ad­vo­ca­cy,” Mooni­lal said.

He al­so wel­comed the Prime Min­is­ter’s dis­cus­sion of emerg­ing ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence tech­nolo­gies.

“We sup­port the Hon Prime Min­is­ter on adopt­ing the new de­scrip­tion of ‘su­per in­tel­li­gence’ as a more ac­cu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of path-break­ing tech­nolo­gies,” Mooni­lal said.

How­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor and for­mer for­eign and Cari­com af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne of­fered a sharply dif­fer­ent as­sess­ment.

In a Face­book post fol­low­ing the ad­dress, Browne de­scribed the speech as “in­ter­mit­tent­ly in­co­her­ent” and sug­gest­ed Per­sad-Bisses­sar ap­peared “clear­ly un­fa­mil­iar with some of the ma­te­r­i­al.”

“A brief and jum­bled mix of is­sues with no dis­cernible theme,” Browne wrote.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as the Prime Min­is­ter’s fail­ure to ad­dress sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al is­sues di­rect­ly.

He said Per­sad-Bisses­sar had “stu­dious­ly avoid­ed ad­dress­ing any­thing re­quir­ing prin­ci­ple such as Gaza, Cu­ba, and the at­tacks against the In­ter­na­tion­al Crim­i­nal Court.”

He fur­ther took is­sue with ref­er­ences to US Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump dur­ing the ad­dress.

“The ex­pect­ed mul­ti­ple ref­er­ences to Don­ald Trump as a source of glob­al wis­dom,” Browne wrote.

Browne al­so crit­i­cised what he de­scribed as the ab­sence of ref­er­ences to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s so­cial fab­ric.

“As usu­al no ref­er­ence at all to any of the pos­i­tive qual­i­ties of our di­verse so­ci­ety,” he stat­ed.

He con­clud­ed his as­sess­ment by re­fer­ring to re­marks he said Per­sad-Bisses­sar has made in lo­cal po­lit­i­cal dis­course.

“On the bright side, at least the Prime Min­is­ter did not use any of the dis­gust­ing racial slurs that she has been try­ing her ut­most to nor­malise in her lo­cal po­lit­i­cal dis­course,” Browne wrote.