Ke­jan Haynes

News­gath­er­ing Ed­i­tor

ke­jan.haynes@guardian.co.tt

For­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) MP Jack Warn­er has ac­cused Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Mar­vin Gon­za­les of pro­mot­ing vi­o­lence on the Gen­er­al Elec­tion cam­paign trail, af­ter Gon­za­les told sup­port­ers to “bury (Warn­er) in the Lopinot ceme­tery” dur­ing a PNM meet­ing last week.

In a me­dia state­ment, Warn­er said he was “amused and dis­turbed” by Gon­za­les’ re­marks, call­ing them a “mo­ron­ic at­tempt to chan­nel rage” and warn­ing they could in­cite re­al harm.

“We have not heard politi­cians in Trinidad and To­ba­go, re­gion­al­ly or with­in the Com­mon­wealth, call for the death of one of their peers re­gard­less of the pol­i­tics they sup­port,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er was re­spond­ing to Gon­za­les’ com­ments at a meet­ing in Arou­ca/Lopinot on April 9. Re­fer­ring to Warn­er’s 2020 chal­lenge in the con­stituen­cy, Gon­za­les said: “I put him in the blast­ed box… We have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty April 28 to put Jack in the box once and for all. And let us bury him in the Lopinot ceme­tery!”

But Gon­za­les, who is al­so the PNM’s can­di­date for the new­ly re­named Arou­ca/Lopinot con­stituen­cy, yes­ter­day dis­missed Warn­er’s con­cerns.

“Like that shot hit him hard,” Gon­za­les said.

“Well, he is walk­ing with the UNC can­di­date cam­paign­ing against me every day. He ex­pects not to get blows? Tell Jack drink some Kool-Aid and take his well-de­served po­lit­i­cal blows. He is well in­volved in the po­lit­i­cal are­na through his spon­sored prox­ies. And I will share my po­lit­i­cal licks.”

Warn­er, who served as UNC MP for Ch­agua­nas West be­fore re­sign­ing and win­ning the seat un­der his In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) ban­ner, lost to Gon­za­les in Lopinot Bon Air West in 2020. Warn­er is not a can­di­date in this year’s elec­tion.

“I am not one to of­fi­cial­ly re­spond to foul-mouthed politi­cians, or en­gage in ban­ter from in­iq­ui­tous de­gen­er­ates, but I felt com­pelled to re­spond,” Warn­er wrote in his re­lease. He de­scribed Gon­za­les’ rhetoric as a dan­ger­ous es­ca­la­tion in po­lit­i­cal dis­course.

“This is the first time in re­cent his­to­ry that I have seen a bla­tant at­tempt to in­tro­duce vi­o­lence in­to our elec­toral process. And we need to take note that this was done by the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty,” Warn­er said.

Warn­er re­called once hav­ing a cor­dial re­la­tion­ship with Gon­za­les, who pre­vi­ous­ly worked un­der him as head of the le­gal de­part­ment at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port.

“I al­ways viewed him as a gen­tle­man and a leader of men,” he said, adding that Gon­za­les had per­son­al­ly in­formed him when he was get­ting mar­ried. To me, his cur­rent ram­bling is a re­flec­tion of the com­pa­ny he keeps,” Warn­er said.

“His de­scend­ing to the gut­ter sug­gests what he feels would ap­peal to a deeply un­set­tled base.”

Warn­er al­so took is­sue with Gon­za­les’ sug­ges­tion that his po­lit­i­cal ca­reer was a means to es­cape ex­tra­di­tion to the US, where he has been fac­ing le­gal pro­ceed­ings since 2013 in a mat­ter re­lat­ed to his FI­FA tenure.

“If it is be­fore the courts for 12 years now, it means that my chal­lenge to the process has cred­i­bil­i­ty,” he said.

He warned that Gon­za­les’ com­ment hint­ed at ju­di­cial in­ter­fer­ence.

“Since he is aware that our politi­cians could in­flu­ence the judg­ment made in our courts, it sug­gests that he has seen it in mo­tion while serv­ing as a gov­ern­ment min­is­ter. To me, that is very dis­turb­ing.”

Draw­ing par­al­lels to oth­er Gov­ern­ment fig­ures, Warn­er added: “Maybe Stu­art Young is not the on­ly bul­ly in the PNM.”