Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad�Bisses­sar's state­ments about ap­ply­ing con­di­tions to any aid T&T pro­vides in the wake of Trop­i­cal Storm Tomas has trig­gered an avalanche of crit­i­cisms. Through­out the re­gion, there are calls for a boy­cott of prod­ucts from Trinidad and To­ba­go as post­ed by Caribbean na­tion­als on so­cial net­work­ing sites, Face­book and Twit­ter, as well as the Black­Ber­ry broad­cast mes­sage ser­vice. An­gry na­tion­als from Ja­maica, St Lu­cia, St Vin­cent and Bar­ba­dos ex­pressed their dis­gust and out­rage over Per­sad�Bisses­sar's state­ment that T&T should get some­thing in re­turn for as­sist­ing its Caribbean coun­ter­parts who were af­fect­ed by Tomas.

An ar­ti­cle which ap­peared on the web­site Go�Ja­maica yes­ter­day said an on­line cam­paign was un­der­way to boy­cott T&T's prod­ucts.

There were sev­er­al com­ments by up­set blog­gers. One blog­ger urged Ja­maicans to boy­cott prod­ucts and "even the air­line." "Let them (prod­ucts) spoil on the shelves. We need to send a mes­sage to that lit­tle coun­try that no man is an is­land and no is­land stands alone," the com­ment by 'Ja­maican' said. 'San­far' stat­ed: "I agree with boy­cotting their prod­ucts. Just to send a mes­sage to them that we can do with­out their prod­ucts." A page, cre­at­ed on Face­book. stat­ed "Kam­la needs to apol­o­gise." It list­ed 476 mem­bers at 4 pm yes­ter­day.

Al­so on the Face­book com­mu­ni­ty news page was "On The Ground News Re­port" which is "liked" by 46,161 peo­ple. Sev­er­al per­sons post­ed com­ments lam­bast­ing the PM. In ad­di­tion, Black­Ber­ry-users have been re­ceiv­ing a mes­sage which states: "Join me and many of my friends in the 'BUY NOTH­ING MADE IN TRINIDAD AND TO­BA­GO' cam­paign. This is a re­sult of the T&T PM's open state­ment to the me­dia say­ing she will not give any as­sis­tance to Cari­com coun­tries af­fect­ed by Hur­ri­cane Tomas un­less it is to the ben­e­fit of Trinidad. "I won­der if she is aware of the amount of prod­ucts we pur­chase dai­ly that is made in Trinidad. PLEASE JOIN AND PASS IT ON."

Among some of the com­ments were:

�2An­drea Sen­su­al­vanil­la Pow­ell: "Nut­ty flakes, corn flakes, bis­cuits, ce­re­als, Bus­ta and Chub­by soft drinks, tinned Fru­ta and Vi­va, the sparkling bot­tled wa­ter are among a wide range of food­stuff from Trinidad and To­ba­go that are now com­mon­place in the lo­cal mar­ket. "BOY­COTT DEM PEO­PLE!! Mi a do a check list fi see what I shouldn't but this week!"

�2 Dav­eon Nu­gent: "I see this thing has gone right over some peo­ple's heads. It's not about eco­nom­ic pru­dence, it's about a Head of State of a Cari­com na­tion stat­ing they will not help a Cari­com na­tion un­less they can ex­ploit the sit­u­a­tion. "What kind of a wicked per­son should seek to ben­e­fit off the suf­fer­ing of oth­ers. Ja­maicans, please don't sup­port this wicked­ness. BOY­COTT T&T PROD­UCTS, at least un­til she (PM) apol­o­gis­es."

�2 Oniel Pryce: "No apol­o­gy! Just stop buy­ing Trinidad prod­ucts pe­ri­od!"

�2 An un­named St Lu­cian: "Se­ri­ous­ly, that was sim­ply heart­less and plain self­ish! We need to show her what can hap­pen when se­ri­ous, God-fear­ing and car­ing peo­ple unite. I think we (St Lu­cia) im­port a lot of snacks from T&T. I will try my best to avoid buy­ing these things."