Chair­man of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Jack Warn­er has con­demned the ac­tions of a group of protest­ing farm­ers on Wednes­day af­ter they came to a face-to-face en­counter with Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar. He called for the lead­er­ship arm of the group to is­sue and apol­o­gy and for the thug­gery to cease. Warn­er said the farm­ers "stooped to an all-time low in de­rid­ing our beloved Prime Min­is­ter, the Ho­n­ourable Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar."

In a state­ment, Warn­er, who is al­so the Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port, said the un­pro­voked be­hav­iour dis­re­gard­ed the em­pa­thy shown to­wards the group by Per­sad-Bisses­sar and re­flect­ed their lack of rea­son in see­ing the broad­er pic­ture. Per­sad-Bisses­sar was mak­ing her ex­it from the Hous­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion build­ing on George Street, Port-of-Spain, af­ter dis­trib­ut­ing keys to new home­own­ers when the protest­ing group height­ened their chants and en­cir­cled her. "Their at­tempts to block the Prime Min­is­ter man­i­fest the type of hooli­gan­ism that is res­i­dent with­in the group," Warn­er said.

"They have the right to protest, but the deco­rum and the re­spect to which we have grown ac­cus­tomed to are no longer among us, es­pe­cial­ly when this type of hooli­gan­ism is di­rect­ed at a leader seek­ing jus­tice and equal­i­ty for all," Warn­er said. He added the group re­ceived in­stru­ments for re­moval on State lands and yet re­sist­ed the law. Warn­er said the farm­ers' pres­ence on State land was at the mer­cy of the Gov­ern­ment, and un­der no cir­cum­stances the leader of the coun­try would be bul­lied and ha­rassed.