Richard Lord

Tem­po­rary Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Ra­bindra Moo­nan says the Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) must apol­o­gise to the na­tion for the wrong it did over the past 50 years. Moo­nan, a for­mer PNM coun­cil­lor, was con­tribut­ing to yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on two bills, the An­ti-Gang and Bail (Amend­ment) bills. Moo­nan was very crit­i­cal of Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Fitzger­ald Hinds dur­ing his hour-long con­tri­bu­tion. Hinds and Sen­a­tor Pen­ne­lope Beck­les claimed Moo­nan was be­ing ir­rel­e­vant but that was not sup­port­ed by Sen­ate Vice Pres­i­dent Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, who was pre­sid­ing. Moo­nan said moves by for­mer prime min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning may re­sult in six new Op­po­si­tion sen­a­tors be­ing ap­point­ed to the Up­per House in the next few weeks. Moo­nan was re­fer­ring to the di­vi­sions with­in the PNM, based on mem­bers vot­ing dif­fer­ent­ly in Fri­day's House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives vote on a mo­tion by Man­ning. "Sen­a­tor Hinds may have the du­bi­ous dis­tinc­tion of be­ing moved by one man from two Hous­es," Moo­nan told leg­is­la­tors.

Min­utes lat­er Op­po­si­tion Sen­a­tor Sham­fa Cud­joe, in her re­sponse, said the po­lit­i­cal par­ties were made up of peo­ple who fought, broke up, kissed and made up. She said the re­cent de­vel­op­ments with the PNM "was noth­ing new." She re­called the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress, which was now in Gov­ern­ment, had ma­jor di­vi­sions be­fore the May 24 polls. "Many of us could re­mem­ber when there was a UNC-A and a UNC-B," she added. Cud­joe said there was need for the po­lice to fo­cus on fight­ing crime rather than fight­ing among them­selves. She said while that was tak­ing place it was on­ly the crim­i­nal el­e­ment which was ben­e­fit­ing.