Akash Sama­roo

Lead Ed­i­tor-Pol­i­tics

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has brushed aside crit­i­cism over her de­ci­sion to is­sue a sep­a­rate In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage to Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) sup­port­ers, de­scrib­ing the back­lash as “fake out­rage” and in­sist­ing she will con­tin­ue to de­fend the par­ty’s mem­ber­ship.

“I couldn’t care less about their fake out­rage even if I tried,” Per­sad-Bisses­sar told Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day when asked about crit­i­cism from mem­bers of the pub­lic and po­lit­i­cal op­po­nents.

She ar­gued that ex­press­ing loy­al­ty to her po­lit­i­cal base does not con­flict with her re­spon­si­bil­i­ties as Prime Min­is­ter.

“If a per­son is in­ca­pable of show­ing love to their own fam­i­ly, then that per­son is in­ca­pable of show­ing love to any­one else. If a per­son can­not de­fend them­self and their fam­i­ly, then that per­son can­not de­fend any­one else,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said UNC sup­port­ers must be con­fi­dent that both she and the par­ty will stand up for them, de­clar­ing that at­tacks on the mem­ber­ship would no longer go unan­swered.

“My UNC fam­i­ly must al­ways know that I love them and will de­fend them. The days where every­one used to wash their mouths on the UNC are over,” she said.

“In gov­ern­ment or out of gov­ern­ment, peo­ple must un­der­stand that if you try to abuse or take ad­van­tage of the UNC mem­ber­ship, the par­ty and I will re­spond sav­age­ly and swift­ly.”

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so took aim at the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM), ac­cus­ing the par­ty of em­brac­ing calls for uni­ty and ac­count­abil­i­ty on­ly when it oc­cu­pies the Op­po­si­tion bench­es.

“The PNM on­ly wants uni­ty, trans­paren­cy, ac­count­abil­i­ty, co­op­er­a­tion and peace when they are in op­po­si­tion. When they are in gov­ern­ment, they shout that they are in charge and every­one must deal with it,” she said.

The con­tro­ver­sy stems from a mes­sage Per­sad-Bisses­sar is­sued on Mon­day as Trinidad and To­ba­go marked its 64th an­niver­sary of In­de­pen­dence. In the ad­dress, she spoke di­rect­ly to what she called “the most im­por­tant peo­ple to me, the UNC fam­i­ly.”

She thanked sup­port­ers for en­trust­ing her with lead­er­ship of both the par­ty and the coun­try and re­flect­ed on the sac­ri­fices of their an­ces­tors, many of whom worked in the cane fields, oil­fields and oth­er in­dus­tries while striv­ing to se­cure bet­ter op­por­tu­ni­ties for fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused the PNM of sub­ject­ing the an­ces­tors of UNC sup­port­ers to “ridicule and ha­tred” dur­ing the post-In­de­pen­dence era.

While en­cour­ag­ing sup­port­ers to en­gage their com­mu­ni­ties with love, she al­so adopt­ed a more com­bat­ive tone.

“Do not crawl on your bel­ly for any­one. It’s ei­ther peace or to­tal war, noth­ing in be­tween,” she said.

She de­scribed the UNC as a “be­lief sys­tem” ground­ed in re­sis­tance, free­dom, equal­i­ty, jus­tice, uni­ty, hope and faith, adding that its lead­er­ship should nev­er fall in­to the hands of “weak men and women.”

“Fi­nesse and diplo­ma­cy must be backed up with stee­li­ness and sav­agery when re­quired to de­fend the UNC mem­ber­ship,” she said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar fur­ther ac­cused the PNM of be­ing “hi­jacked by the lo­cal drug mafia and the fake eat-a-food elite.”

De­spite the crit­i­cism sur­round­ing the In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sage, the Prime Min­is­ter stood by her de­ci­sion to ad­dress UNC sup­port­ers di­rect­ly and re­it­er­at­ed her com­mit­ment to rep­re­sent­ing them.

“I am ho­n­oured to be your leader and I am com­mit­ted to work­ing tire­less­ly to en­sure your voic­es are heard and our na­tion moves in the right di­rec­tion,” she said in Mon­day’s mes­sage.