DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has faced scathing crit­i­cism over her con­tro­ver­sial re­marks about for­mer Unit­ed States pres­i­dent Joe Biden, whose ad­min­is­tra­tion she de­scribed as a “dis­as­ter”.

But in re­sponse to those crit­i­cisms, which al­so came from with­in her par­ty, she dou­bled down on her com­ments, in­sist­ing that she would not change her po­si­tion.

For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne was among her harsh­est de­trac­tors, tak­ing to Twit­ter on Mon­day night to de­scribe her com­ments as “most in­ap­pro­pri­ate, in­ju­di­cious, in­ept, im­pru­dent, fawn­ing, tact­less, reck­less, ob­se­quious, in­tem­per­ate, and ill-ad­vised ut­ter­ance to date.”

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia out­side Par­lia­ment yes­ter­day, Browne fur­ther ripped in­to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, call­ing her state­ment a “dis­as­ter”—the same term she re­cent­ly used against Biden.

In her bruis­ing chas­tise­ment of Biden, Per­sad-Bisses­sar al­so ac­cused him of be­ing too fo­cused on push­ing a “woke, ex­treme left-wing agen­da” that she said of­fend­ed ba­sic com­mon sense and moral­i­ty—a stark con­trast to her Face­book post ex­act­ly four years ago on Jan­u­ary 21, 2021, when she con­grat­u­lat­ed Biden on be­com­ing pres­i­dent and ex­pressed op­ti­mism for a good work­ing re­la­tion­ship be­tween T&T and Wash­ing­ton.

How­ev­er, her pub­lic re­buke of the for­mer US pres­i­dent, be­fore the ink dried on his suc­ces­sor Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s sign­ing, earned her Browne’s stern con­dem­na­tion.

“I think that last phrase, “a dis­as­ter,” re­al­ly prop­er­ly en­cap­su­lates the most re­cent me­dia re­lease of the leader of the Op­po­si­tion. It’s very dis­ap­point­ing, even by her al­ready low stan­dards. Some of the lan­guage and phras­ing be­ing used is at best, undiplo­mat­ic, and at worst, com­plete­ly ill-ad­vised and ac­tu­al­ly dan­ger­ous to the in­ter­est of Cari­com, of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he added.

Browne said the dis­course was com­plete­ly in­ap­pro­pri­ate and was not en­cour­aged among state of­fice­hold­ers. He re­it­er­at­ed T&T’s non-in­ter­ven­tion­ist po­si­tion on oth­er na­tions’ pol­i­tics.

“We do not get in­volved in the do­mes­tic po­lit­i­cal af­fairs of oth­er coun­tries to the de­gree that she seems to feel might be ad­van­ta­geous to her po­lit­i­cal prospects. I don’t think they are ad­van­ta­geous to her po­lit­i­cal prospects at all, but I am even more con­cerned about the im­pli­ca­tions to the good, short-term, medi­um-term and long-term re­la­tions that are im­por­tant for na­tions like Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he said.

“We don’t have a big army; we don’t have huge re­sources. We de­pend on pru­dent, re­spon­si­ble and wise diplo­mat­ic en­gage­ments which are con­veyed in many way. Hope­ful­ly, wis­er heads will pre­vail,” he added.

Govt unit­ed in cri­tique

Gov­ern­ment min­is­ters and one Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment sen­a­tor were unit­ed in their con­dem­na­tion.

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds cheek­i­ly stat­ed: “I am tempt­ed to say that the op­po­si­tion leader is a dis­as­ter, but I wouldn’t say that.”

Labour Min­is­ter Stephen Mc Clashie said, “It’s un­for­tu­nate and I think for a sea­soned politi­cian, those com­ments have no place in a na­tion that is not un­der the pro­tec­torate or any­thing from the US gov­ern­ment to make those kinds of state­ments. It re­al­ly, in my opin­ion, is undig­ni­fied and com­plete­ly lack­ing of po­lit­i­cal wis­dom.”

Sen­a­tor An­cil Den­nis said, “The com­ments were un­for­tu­nate and an em­bar­rass­ment to the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” while Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell added, “I think it was ex­treme­ly im­politic. I think it has the po­ten­tial to dam­age our diplo­ma­cy and diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca.”

Mean­while, the PNM Na­tion­al Women’s League con­demned Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s com­ments as reck­less and dam­ag­ing to not just the US but T&T’s stand­ing on the world stage. The league said her sen­ti­ments risked un­der­min­ing that part­ner­ship, harm­ing our in­ter­na­tion­al rep­u­ta­tion and iso­lat­ing the coun­try.

Rai: She needs to ex­er­cise ‘greater sober thought’ in her state­ments

Even with­in the Op­po­si­tion, one of the so-called dis­si­dents, Dr Rai Rag­bir chas­tised Per­sad-Bisses­sar, urg­ing her to ex­er­cise “greater sober thought” in her pub­lic state­ments.

The Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la MP al­so ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment in her com­ments, which he be­lieves can un­der­mine T&T’s long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with the US.

“State­ments that sin­gle out spe­cif­ic po­lit­i­cal fig­ures in the Unit­ed States, par­tic­u­lar­ly when phrased in a way that could be per­ceived as par­tial or in­flam­ma­to­ry, risk un­der­min­ing our long­stand­ing re­la­tion­ship with the US,” he said.

“This re­la­tion­ship has been built on decades of mu­tu­al re­spect and co­op­er­a­tion, re­gard­less of which ad­min­is­tra­tion is in pow­er. It is cru­cial that we adopt a con­sis­tent and non-par­ti­san ap­proach to our for­eign pol­i­cy, en­sur­ing that our en­gage­ments are pro­fes­sion­al, con­struc­tive, and in the best in­ter­est of our cit­i­zens.”

Rag­bir added, “We must al­so re­mem­ber that US for­eign pol­i­cy does not re­volve around any one in­di­vid­ual. It is guid­ed by in­sti­tu­tion­al frame­works, long-term strate­gies, and a col­lec­tive ap­proach from the Pres­i­dent, Con­gress, and var­i­ous agen­cies. By mak­ing re­marks that ap­pear po­lit­i­cal­ly bi­ased, we could in­ad­ver­tent­ly alien­ate key stake­hold­ers who are es­sen­tial to pre­serv­ing and strength­en­ing this re­la­tion­ship,” he con­tin­ued.

He al­so ex­pressed con­cern that the op­po­si­tion leader failed to con­sult with the par­ty be­fore pub­licly de­clar­ing the UNC’s pol­i­cy.

Mean­while, Prof Dr Ger­ard Hutchin­son, said while he had not heard or read the com­ments, he found them to be “a lit­tle ex­treme.”

In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Suni­ty Ma­haraj weighed in, say­ing all po­lit­i­cal lead­ers should pay at­ten­tion to the im­por­tance of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

John backs Per­sad-Bisses­sar

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was sup­port­ed by one of her deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers, Sen­a­tor Jear­lean John, who said she was en­ti­tled to her opin­ion hav­ing seen the work of the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion.

Mean­while, UNC in­ter­nal re­la­tions of­fi­cer Nicholas Mor­ris al­so de­fend­ed the po­lit­i­cal leader’s mes­sage, say­ing it was the cor­rect tone, essence and po­lit­i­cal­ly in touch with her diplo­ma­cy. He said her con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage need­ed to place the na­tion in­to “the good books” of the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion con­sid­er­ing the cur­rent gov­ern­ment’s strained re­la­tion­ship with Trump.

He said the mes­sage of­fered hope that a UNC gov­ern­ment would be open, pro­gres­sive, sta­ble, sup­port the prin­ci­ples of democ­ra­cy and align with the present US gov­ern­ment.

How­ev­er, in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions ex­pert Dr An­tho­ny Gon­za­lez told Guardian Me­dia that he was as­ton­ished by the op­po­si­tion leader’s com­ments. He said it does not bode well for T&T’s in­ter­ests and warned that she should be mind­ful that Biden can re­turn to of­fice.

NTA slams ‘di­vi­sive’ rhetoric

The Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance has al­so con­demned the op­po­si­tion leader’s state­ment, ac­cus­ing the per­son who penned her re­lease of lack­ing an un­der­stand­ing of in­ter­na­tion­al re­la­tions.

NTA leader Gary Grif­fith said the re­lease was ei­ther a fail­ure of sound diplo­mat­ic judge­ment or she was a vic­tim of poor ad­vice. Re­spond­ing to her com­ments re­gard­ing the “woke agen­da,” Grif­fith said it was di­vi­sive.

“While a more mod­ern in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the term in­cludes di­vi­sive el­e­ments such as bi­o­log­i­cal men com­pet­ing in women’s sports, the term orig­i­nal­ly emerged from African Amer­i­can Ver­nac­u­lar Eng­lish (AAVE) to de­scribe height­ened aware­ness of so­cial and racial in­jus­tices.

“Giv­en the re­al­i­ties of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s racial, eth­nic, and trib­al di­vi­sions, any­thing that could fur­ther fu­el this di­vide must be avoid­ed.”

Grif­fith said states­man­like con­duct and diplo­mat­ic dis­ci­pline dic­tate that those who rep­re­sent T&T must nev­er be seen to favour one ad­min­is­tra­tion over the oth­er. He fur­ther not­ed that the re­lease risks alien­at­ing a sig­nif­i­cant seg­ment of Amer­i­can lead­er­ship and so­ci­ety, in­clud­ing those who may re­turn to of­fice in the fu­ture.

Op­po­si­tion Leader not back­ing down, re­it­er­ates con­dem­na­tion

Mean­while, Per­sad-Bisses­sar stands by her com­ments, go­ing fur­ther to de­scribe the Biden ad­min­is­tra­tion as “an ab­solute dis­as­ter.”

She itemised 20 points to jus­ti­fy her re­jec­tion of Biden, some of which have been dis­proven, such as the claim that pu­ber­ty block­ers can be giv­en to teens with­out parental con­sent. Over the past three years, 26 Re­pub­li­can-con­trolled US states have passed laws re­strict­ing gen­der-af­firm­ing care for mi­nors. Most of the laws ban pu­ber­ty block­ers, hor­mone treat­ment and surgery for those un­der 18.

The 20 points are as fol­lows:

1. Tam­pons in teenage boys’ bath­rooms

2. Pu­ber­ty block­ers for teens with­out parental con­sent

3. Gen­der re­as­sign­ment surgery for chil­dren

4. Sex­u­al­i­sa­tion and groom­ing of chil­dren un­der the guise of hu­man rights

5. Adult men use the same pub­lic wash­rooms as lit­tle girls and women

6. Drag queen shows in schools and li­braries in front of kids

7. Bi­o­log­i­cal men par­tic­i­pat­ing in women’s sports

8. The slaugh­ter of 18,000 chil­dren in Gaza

9. Gen­der pro­nouns

10. Forced health man­dates

11. De­fund­ing the po­lice

12. The re­moval of re­li­gion from schools and pub­lic in­sti­tu­tions

13.The per­se­cu­tion of per­sons for hold­ing to their re­li­gious be­liefs

14. Can­cel cul­ture

15. Virtue sig­nalling

16. So­cial me­dia shad­ow-ban­ning

17. Two-tiered jus­tice sys­tem

18. Weapon­i­sa­tion of the ju­di­cial sys­tem against per­sons with op­pos­ing opin­ions

19. Cen­sor­ship of free speech

20. High lev­els of in­fla­tion, crime, nepo­tism and cor­rup­tion

“Peo­ple want com­mon sense poli­cies and equal op­por­tu­ni­ties based on mer­it, ex­cel­lence, and in­tel­li­gence and are fed up with woke far left, non­sen­si­cal poli­cies that are based on the use of iden­ti­ty pol­i­tics, moral su­pe­ri­or­i­ty and di­vi­sion. Peo­ple just want to live and en­joy their lives and be hap­py with­out the state in­trud­ing on their per­son­al space,” she said.