People’s National Movement (PNM) leader Dr Keith Rowley is again warning that the People’s Partnership Government has put the lives of citizens, including those abroad, at a greater risk by co-sponsoring a United Nations resolution aimed at tackling global terrorism. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar made the decision to co-sponsor the resolution at a meeting of the UN Security Council, chaired by United States President Barack Obama at UN headquarters, New York, two weeks ago.
But at the Diego Martin West Constituency’s annual conference at the Point Cumana Community Complex in Point Cumana yesterday, Rowley accused the PM of wanting to take on the terrorist group Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). Describing Persad-Bissessar’s actions as wild and reckless, Rowley added, “That action by the prime minister has put every citizen at greater risk both and home and abroad.
“And when you asked the prime minister whether she consulted Caricom, she said she talked to Ramlogan and Griffith. And if we did not know before, we now know we are in trouble because our foreign policy is now the random thoughts of Ramlogan and Griffith.” He said T&T was incapable of fighting crime on Duncan Street, Port-of-Spain, far less tackling the now globally feared Isis, which has targeted non-military citizens of countries seen as allies to the US with deadly force.
As such, Rowley reiterated his statement that co-sponsoring the resolution could have serious repercussions for citizens. Describing the move by Persad-Bissessar as “no laughing matter,” Rowley said there was no need for the PM to expose T&T to possibly attacks by Isis jihadists in such a fashion, since once the resolution was passed by the majority, every member country of the UN was bound by it, even if a member county was absent when the resolution was passed.
“Trinidad and Tobago and the United States are very close friends,” he said “They are our major trading partner but their business and their interest may not necessarily on every occasion be our business and our interests.” He said the resolution was largely aimed at the current war in Syria and Iraq, where Muslim extremists of the “worst kind” were trying to claim territories and terrorists were trying to build a case for themselves.
“And anybody who get in their way they would deal with you. I am not saying we are outside that, because the world is now a global village, but when there is war and you take up the flag to carry in front of the army you are a target of the opposition,” Rowley said. He also clarified statements by Attorney General Anand Ramlogan that he was not in support of the resolution.
Saying he was in fully support of it, Rowley called on Persad-Bissessar to say what she was thinking when she made the decision. “I never said we should not vote for the resolution. I think we should vote for the resolution. What is the thinking to go and be a co-sponsor of the resolution if you are attracting unwanted attention to yourself?
“Because in any case it is a declaration of war on the terrorists. It is a declaration of war against their actions which are reprehensible. But we have also to be sensible in the environment...you do what you have to do.” He said Persad-Bissessar only made the decision to co-sponsor the resolution so as to “prostrate” herself on the world stage for her “minions” to laud her efforts.