Yvonne Ba­boolal

Un­der gloomy skies and amidst re­ports that there was an elec­tri­cal black­out from Port-of-Spain to Pi­ar­co at noon yes­ter­day, PNM Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Diego Mar­tin Cen­tral, Amery Browne, stood up in Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, and prayed for the na­tion. All dressed in som­bre black, Browne, so­cial de­vel­op­ment min­is­ter in the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, and a group of 12 peo­ple prayed for the Gov­ern­ment to con­duct its du­ties and for dis­tressed peo­ple in the coun­try. Tem­porar­i­ly dis­turbed by a va­grant each per­son prayed. Browne said they were of all Chris­t­ian de­nom­i­na­tions but some in­clud­ed young peo­ple who held po­si­tions in the PNM par­ty.

"At this time there are many dis­tressed per­sons. Our prayers went out to fam­i­lies who are dis­tressed and trou­bled chil­dren and adults," he told the me­dia af­ter­wards. Browne de­nied that the move was a po­lit­i­cal one. "This is by no means a po­lit­i­cal gath­er­ing. This is about car­ing for our coun­try," he said.

Asked if he did not think the ac­tion might be seen as un­law­ful un­der the present state of emer­gency, he replied: "We strong­ly feel it is not un­pa­tri­ot­ic to ask ques­tions about what is tak­ing place in the coun­try, to hold Gov­ern­ment ac­count­able, to pray for our na­tion.

"All cit­i­zens should be pray­ing for the wel­fare of our na­tion each and every­day." Browne said they chose to pray in Wood­ford Square be­cause it was in the heart of the city and it was where the seeds of our con­sti­tu­tion were ger­mi­nat­ed.