Padarath rejects Browne’s call for PM to ‘cool it’

Pub­lic Util­i­ties Min­is­ter Bar­ry Padarath has pushed back against com­ments by Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, who called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to “cool it” and “mod­er­ate” her lan­guage fol­low­ing re­cent on­line threats made against him.

In a state­ment, Padarath said Dr Browne had mis­char­ac­terised the Prime Min­is­ter’s com­ments and un­fair­ly at­tempt­ed to link a pri­vate cit­i­zen, now charged by law en­force­ment for is­su­ing vi­o­lent threats, to her. He said that con­nec­tion was un­found­ed and po­lice have al­ready act­ed and due process is un­der­way.

Padarath al­so ac­cused the Op­po­si­tion of re­peat­ed­ly plac­ing blame on the Prime Min­is­ter re­gard­less of the facts.

He ar­gued that Dr Browne had ig­nored what he de­scribed as a his­to­ry of in­flam­ma­to­ry lan­guage by se­nior fig­ures and sup­port­ers of the PNM.

He ref­er­enced a past plat­form state­ment by for­mer min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty Fitzger­ald Hinds, who said, “Fin­ish them out. Kill them dead, take a bal­isi­er stake and dri­ve it deep in­to the heart of the UNC vam­pires.” Padarath said Dr Browne did not pub­licly ob­ject at the time.

He al­so cit­ed a state­ment by a sit­ting PNM MP, “If yuh name man, come out­side,” and a so­cial me­dia com­ment by PNM ac­tivist Juli­et Davy, who wrote, “Tell them they sup­posed to jump over the fence, run up in dey house, hold dem and deal with dem.” Padarath said Dr Browne did not pub­licly con­demn those re­marks.

Padarath fur­ther ref­er­enced past re­marks by for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, in­clud­ing his use of the term “jamette,” the com­ment that “a golf course is like a woman,” ref­er­ences to cit­i­zens as hye­nas, and the phrase “cot­ton-pick­ing mind.” He said those com­ments con­tributed to the wider po­lit­i­cal cli­mate and again drew no pub­lic re­sponse from Dr Browne at the time.

He al­so re­ferred to the “Za­m­my” com­ment made by for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, say­ing there was again no ob­jec­tion from Dr Browne.

Padarath said that, giv­en this record, it was un­rea­son­able for Dr Browne to now sug­gest that the Prime Min­is­ter in­flu­enced the be­hav­iour of the in­di­vid­ual who has since been charged.

He said the Prime Min­is­ter would ad­dress crime with ur­gency while mur­ders, il­le­gal firearms, drug traf­fick­ing and hu­man traf­fick­ing con­tin­ue to threat­en pub­lic safe­ty. He al­so said vi­o­lence and in­cite­ment to vi­o­lence against any cit­i­zen are il­le­gal and un­ac­cept­able and must be con­demned with­out reser­va­tion.

Mean­while, speak­ing at Wedne­day’s Op­po­si­tion me­dia brief­ing, Dr Browne said that while he was sat­is­fied with the po­lice re­sponse to the threat against him, he was con­cerned about what he de­scribed as “the pol­i­tics of hate and di­vi­sion.”

He said the Prime Min­is­ter was en­gag­ing in what he de­scribed as reck­less rhetoric and ag­gres­sive lan­guage.

“You’re deal­ing with a broad pop­u­la­tion. You’re deal­ing with sup­port­ers, some of which might be sus­cep­ti­ble to tak­ing the wrong de­ci­sions and ac­tions based on your rhetoric,” he said.

Browne said all po­lit­i­cal ac­tors need­ed to be pru­dent in their lan­guage and the ex­am­ple they set.

Op­po­si­tion MP Colm Im­bert al­so com­ment­ed on the is­sue, say­ing the Prime Min­is­ter had re­cent­ly threat­ened him with phys­i­cal harm.

“Now, the Prime Min­is­ter threat­ened to cuff me down. And said to­day I’m an evil man. So, I sin­cere­ly hope that this is not go­ing to cause any of her sup­port­ers to make sim­i­lar threats against me,” Im­bert said.