Rowley: Kamla a danger to T&T’s social and racial stability

For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of pos­ing “a great dan­ger to the so­cial and racial sta­bil­i­ty of this coun­try,” as he con­tin­ues his crit­i­cism of the Gov­ern­ment’s poli­cies and ap­proach.

In a state­ment post­ed on his Face­book page yes­ter­day, Row­ley claimed Per­sad-Bisses­sar was pur­su­ing “hate­ful and vin­dic­tive poli­cies” and said she was “out of con­trol and needs to STOP!”

“So, the pub­lic ex­press­ing their open frus­tra­tion at her failed, hate­ful and vin­dic­tive poli­cies are the do­ings of the PNM?” Row­ley wrote.

His com­ments came even as Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tin­ued her crit­i­cism of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) yes­ter­day in a se­ries of so­cial me­dia posts re­lat­ed to the boo­ing of Cul­ture and Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin be­fore the African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day pro­ces­sion in Port-of-Spain and crit­i­cism of Dr Sel­wyn Cud­joe over the use of East In­di­an cul­tur­al el­e­ments in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day cel­e­bra­tions last week.

Row­ley re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that crit­i­cism of the Prime Min­is­ter was be­ing dri­ven by the PNM, ar­gu­ing that cit­i­zens were ex­press­ing gen­uine frus­tra­tion with Gov­ern­ment de­ci­sions.

He al­so ac­cused the ad­min­is­tra­tion of tak­ing “bread out of the mouths of tens of thou­sands of peo­ple, in­clud­ing chil­dren,” adding that the im­pact of its poli­cies had af­fect­ed vul­ner­a­ble cit­i­zens.

“You are not the first. Go and ask Marie An­toinette,” he wrote, in a ref­er­ence to the French queen who was ex­e­cut­ed dur­ing the French Rev­o­lu­tion.

The for­mer prime min­is­ter’s com­ments al­so come amid grow­ing po­lit­i­cal ten­sions be­tween the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion, with both sides trad­ing ac­cu­sa­tions over lead­er­ship, gov­er­nance and na­tion­al pri­or­i­ties.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar has not pub­licly re­spond­ed to Row­ley’s lat­est re­marks.

Mean­while, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, who is al­so the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West, called for na­tion­al uni­ty and urged cit­i­zens to re­flect on the words of the na­tion­al an­them.

Young said the an­them’s mes­sage was es­pe­cial­ly im­por­tant at this point in the coun­try’s his­to­ry.

“What bet­ter and more fit­ting words for us at this mo­ment in our his­to­ry,” he said.

He warned against al­low­ing po­lit­i­cal lead­ers to di­vide cit­i­zens, par­tic­u­lar­ly along racial lines.

“Please let us all re­fo­cus and re­flect on these words of our na­tion­al an­them. Let us not al­low any leader to di­vide us, es­pe­cial­ly along the lines of race and race-bait­ing and racial beat­ing,” Young said.

He said Trinidad and To­ba­go’s di­ver­si­ty should be em­braced as a strength, re­mind­ing cit­i­zens that their shared iden­ti­ty tran­scends dif­fer­ences.

“We are all Trinida­di­ans, what­ev­er our colour, what­ev­er our creed, what­ev­er our re­li­gion,” he said.

Young urged cit­i­zens to al­low their love for the coun­try to re­main a uni­fy­ing force and called on the pub­lic to re­ject at­tempts to dis­tract from na­tion­al is­sues through racial di­vi­sion.

“Let us re­ject the at­tempts to dis­tract along the lines of racism, and may God con­tin­ue to bless our Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.