JENSEN LA VENDE

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the con­tin­ued at­tack by the Prime Min­is­ter against the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is mak­ing her se­ri­ous­ly con­sid­er her le­gal op­tions.

In a me­dia re­lease on Wednes­day, the Prime Min­is­ter chas­tised Beck­les, who had ear­li­er called on her to clear the air on the in­stal­la­tion of a radar in To­ba­go.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Beck­les to ex­plain “whether the PNM’s an­ti-Amer­i­can nar­ra­tive to re­move the Amer­i­can-sup­plied radar sys­tem is re­al­ly due to pres­sure or black­mail from the lo­cal drug mafia and the pre­vi­ous PNM gov­ern­ment’s crude oil sanc­tion-bust­ing Venezue­lan col­lab­o­ra­tors.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar claimed that for ten years, the PNM al­lowed the lo­cal drug mafia to op­er­ate freely through un­pro­tect­ed bor­ders.

“They turned a blind eye to il­le­gal drugs, arms and hu­man traf­fick­ing, as well as to al­le­ga­tions of ram­pant pae­dophil­ia with­in the hi­er­ar­chy of their par­ty.

“They did noth­ing tan­gi­ble to im­prove na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty while thou­sands of women were raped or sex­u­al­ly as­sault­ed, over 5,000 peo­ple were mur­dered, and thou­sands more were vic­tims of vi­o­lent rob­beries.”

The Prime Min­is­ter had pre­vi­ous­ly said the new radar sys­tem in­stalled by Unit­ed States Marines at the new ANR Robin­son Air­port is to as­sist with drug and oth­er il­le­gal traf­fick­ing and not in re­la­tion to US ten­sion with Venezuela.

Speak­ing with the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Beck­les ques­tioned whether the Prime Min­is­ter was con­sid­er­ing her a drug traf­fick­er, say­ing there are im­por­tant ques­tions for the Prime Min­is­ter to an­swer.

“I’m go­ing to look at my le­gal op­tions be­cause it’s get­ting a lit­tle out of hand. It’s re­al­ly quite ridicu­lous and un­found­ed. And as I main­tain, if the Prime Min­is­ter has ev­i­dence of that, take it to the po­lice.

“I mean, that is all about a dis­trac­tion. Why is it that those ac­cu­sa­tions weren’t made be­fore?

“Is she ac­cus­ing me of be­ing some nar­co traf­fick­er or in­volved in some kind of drug traf­fick­ing?

“It’s ridicu­lous. And you know what’s in­ter­est­ing about it, look at what’s hap­pen­ing now in the Unit­ed States where they’re hav­ing their en­quiries.”

Beck­les was re­fer­ring to the on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to the first air strike by the US on Sep­tem­ber 2 against sup­posed drug traf­fick­ers, where men were killed while hold­ing on to de­bris af­ter their ves­sel was blown up.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar cel­e­brat­ed the in­ci­dent, say­ing the US should kill all drug traf­fick­ers vi­o­lent­ly.

Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Dr Amery Browne, who spoke with the me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, al­so com­ment­ed on the PM’s sup­port of the US and its air strikes on pur­port­ed drug deal­ers.

“Our Prime Min­is­ter dragged T&T in­to that scan­dal from the very start. If she had just lis­tened to pru­dent ad­vice, we would not be in this sit­u­a­tion where every in­ter­na­tion­al news sto­ry, all these neg­a­tive an­gles about US/Venezuela ten­sion, poor lit­tle Trinidad and To­ba­go has been dragged in­to that by our dear Prime Min­is­ter.”

Browne said the PM’s as­ser­tion that the Op­po­si­tion is some­how in ca­hoots with the drug deal­ers, and that is why it is against the stance tak­en by the US, is just lazi­ness.

He said the PM has many ques­tions to an­swer and should ad­dress the pub­lic.

He said the Gov­ern­ment be­ing crit­i­cised should not be mis­in­ter­pret­ed as con­dem­na­tion or words from an en­e­my.