Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

"In­hu­mane, dis­taste­ful, cal­lous and in­sen­si­tive." Those were the words of for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day as he lam­bast­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Jack Warn­er for say­ing Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh should take his hunger strike to the next lev­el.

Pan­day, who met with Kublals­ingh twice dur­ing his protest out­side the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter, St Clair, said the pub­lic state­ments by Warn­er and Leader of Gov­ern­ment Busi­ness Dr Roodal Mooni­lal were "dis­taste­ful." At a po­lit­i­cal meet­ing on Mon­day night, Mooni­lal ridiculed the Kublals­ingh fam­i­ly, call­ing them a cult, and crit­i­cised Kublals­ingh's moth­er for not in­ter­ven­ing to stop the hunger strike.

How­ev­er, Pan­day said both min­is­ters had dis­graced them­selves. "Their state­ments," he said, "are re­al­ly in­dica­tive of their char­ac­ter and how lit­tle they care for hu­man life. One would have thought from one hu­man to an­oth­er they would have been more cir­cum­spect but to crit­i­cise Kublals­ingh's moth­er is dis­taste­ful. But then again, it is the style of the Gov­ern­ment."

He de­fend­ed the 53-year-old for­mer uni­ver­si­ty lec­tur­er, say­ing Kublals­ingh was nev­er one to re­sort to vi­o­lence. He added: "Kublals­ingh's strug­gles and ef­forts are dig­ni­fied and non-vi­o­lent. Such strug­gles have been ad­vo­cat­ed by Gand­hi and Je­sus." He con­tend­ed that the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment seemed afraid of Kublals­ingh and his grow­ing sup­port. Pan­day not­ed: "Peo­ple will em­bark on civ­il dis­obe­di­ence, not vi­o­lence."

With re­gard to state­ments from Warn­er that he was a "con­man," Pan­day said: "I would like to say that kind of state­ment, com­ing from a per­son who is be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the FBI, might ac­tu­al­ly be a com­pli­ment." Mean­while, leader of the PNM Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so crit­i­cised Warn­er for his state­ments on Kublals­ingh's hunger strike.

Kublals­ingh's hunger strike - Day13

He said the Gov­ern­ment would nev­er gain sup­port by mak­ing such in­hu­mane state­ments. He al­so agreed the tone of po­lit­i­cal de­bate was chang­ing for the worse. He added: "Noth­ing that comes from these two gen­tle­men sur­pris­es me any more. That is their idea of com­mu­ni­cat­ing their view. It says more about them than it says about any­body else.

"This shows the lim­i­ta­tion of their morals. For a min­is­ter of gov­ern­ment to say, 'hur­ry up and kill your­self,' says a lot of us as a so­ci­ety." Row­ley said Mooni­lal liked to act as a co­me­di­an and al­ways triv­i­alised se­ri­ous is­sues with jokes. He added that the Gov­ern­ment had un­fair­ly de­monised the Kublals­ingh fam­i­ly and had failed to ad­dress their con­cerns.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath de­clined to com­ment on whether the an­ti-Kublals­ingh meet­ing was overkill. Say­ing he did not hear Warn­er or Mooni­lal's state­ments, Ra­goonath said it was clear the Prime Min­is­ter had tak­en a po­si­tion to build the high­way.

He added: "My po­si­tion is the high­way will ben­e­fit thou­sands of peo­ple. I am as­sum­ing that we have a cer­tifi­cate of en­vi­ron­men­tal clear­ance and an en­vi­ron­men­tal im­pact as­sess­ment." Ra­goonath added that once a CEC and EIA were grant­ed he had no prob­lem with the route the Gov­ern­ment was tak­ing. Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Derek Ram­samooj de­clined com­ment, say­ing he was out of the coun­try.

Chair­man of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan was al­so out of the coun­try and said she would make a state­ment when she re­turned to­day.