Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Pres­i­dent of the Is­lam­ic Mis­sion­ar­ies Guild and Pub­lic Re­la­tions Of­fi­cer of Con­cerned Mus­lims of Trinidad and To­ba­go, Im­ti­az Mo­hammed, is call­ing on Mus­lims to stop sup­port­ing the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC), ar­gu­ing that the Gov­ern­ment’s for­eign pol­i­cy has be­trayed the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

Mo­hammed’s com­ments came in re­sponse to ques­tions from Guardian Me­dia fol­low­ing a re­cent meet­ing be­tween For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers, Is­rael’s Non-Res­i­dent Am­bas­sador and Am­bas­sador Ey­nat Shlein, Di­rec­tor Gen­er­al of MASHAV, Is­rael’s Agency for In­ter­na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Co­op­er­a­tion.

Ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, dis­cus­sions fo­cused on es­tab­lish­ing a co­op­er­a­tion work plan tai­lored to Trinidad and To­ba­go’s key de­vel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties.

In a strong­ly word­ed state­ment, Mo­hammed ac­cused Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar of align­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy with the agen­da of the Unit­ed States.

“The Hon Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, since com­ing in­to of­fice, has been car­ry­ing out the Caribbean agen­da of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca,” Mo­hammed said.

“Af­ter com­ing in­to of­fice in April 2025 as Prime Min­is­ter, her sup­port for the USA has been very bold and clear.”

He al­leged that the Gov­ern­ment had fa­cil­i­tat­ed the Unit­ed States’ in­ter­ests in the re­gion.

“As PM, she al­lowed the USA to use T&T’s ge­o­graph­i­cal lo­ca­tion and fa­cil­i­tat­ed a radar sys­tem in To­ba­go to strength­en the USA’s plans to bring down the Pres­i­dent of Venezuela, Nico­las Maduro.”

Mo­hammed al­so crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s de­ci­sion to des­ig­nate Hamas, Hezbol­lah and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions as ter­ror­ist en­ti­ties un­der Trinidad and To­ba­go’s laws.

“Not too long af­ter, our PM and Gov­ern­ment through Par­lia­ment de­clared Hamas, Hezbol­lah and oth­ers as ter­ror­ist groups in the law books of T&T in light of a most bar­bar­ic geno­cide in Pales­tine in progress.”

He fur­ther crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment’s vote against the reap­point­ment of Unit­ed Na­tions High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights Volk­er Türk.

“The PM and her Gov­ern­ment vot­ed against the reap­point­ment of the UN High Com­mis­sion­er for Hu­man Rights, Mr Volk­er Türk. This is a bla­tant dis­re­spect to every­one whose hu­man rights have been vi­o­lat­ed in some way or the oth­er.”

“Mr Volk­er Türk has an out­stand­ing rep­u­ta­tion and has con­demned strong­ly the geno­cide in Pales­tine. Any right-think­ing per­son with a heart would nev­er vote for his re­moval.”

Turn­ing to the re­cent en­gage­ment with Is­raeli of­fi­cials, Mo­hammed ar­gued that strength­en­ing re­la­tions with Is­rael would fur­ther alien­ate the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty.

“Re­cent­ly, the non-res­i­dent Is­raeli am­bas­sador vis­it­ed T&T with an aim to strength­en ties with T&T. Any de­ci­sion to do so will be seen as an­oth­er be­tray­al of the Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty and even oth­ers in T&T.”

He added that the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions were in­con­sis­tent with what many Mus­lim vot­ers ex­pect­ed af­ter last year’s Gen­er­al Elec­tion.

“These ac­tions men­tioned above are not what Mus­lims ex­pect­ed or vot­ed for in April 2025.

“By tow­ing this line of think­ing, ac­tions and part­ner­ing with Is­rael, our Prime Min­is­ter seems to have cho­sen to sup­port the killing of civil­ians, es­pe­cial­ly ba­bies, chil­dren, women and men in Gaza, the West Bank, oth­er parts of Pales­tine and Lebanon.”

Mo­hammed de­scribed the Prime Min­is­ter’s de­ci­sions as “un­for­giv­able” and “a slap in the face of all Mus­lims in T&T.”

“It is a dis­grace that she has cho­sen to align her­self and T&T with Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump and the ICC’s most want­ed man, Ben­jamin Ne­tanyahu, Prime Min­is­ter of Is­rael.”

Mo­hammed ap­pealed to Mus­lim vot­ers “to stop vot­ing UNC in the fu­ture.”

The Prime Min­is­ter has since dis­missed Mo­hammed’s com­ments as a rant.