BAVI­TA GOPAULCHAN

Unit­ed States Am­bas­sador to T&T Joseph Mon­del­lo has ex­pressed his dis­ap­point­ment over the fact that cit­i­zens in his home coun­try are still be­ing forced to fight against in­equal­i­ties.

Mon­del­lo made the com­ment as he looked on at scores of peo­ple who demon­strat­ed out­side the US Em­bassy in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day, in sol­i­dar­i­ty with those in the US and oth­er parts of the world over the re­cent po­lice killing of George Floyd in Min­neapo­lis.

“I do un­der­stand the tor­ment peo­ple are un­der be­cause of this racial in­equal­i­ty and it has got to be cor­rect­ed,” Mon­del­lo said.

He said he un­der­stands the ag­gra­va­tion of cit­i­zens across the Unit­ed States and even here in T&T over the mat­ter.

Mon­del­lo said he re­mem­bers a time when peo­ple re­spect­ed one an­oth­er re­gard­less of who they were and where they came from.

Asked by Guardian Me­dia whether he felt racial ten­sions had in­creased over the years, Mon­del­lo said no. How­ev­er, he said he be­lieves the demon­stra­tions that have swept across the Unit­ed States since Floyd’s death, as well as the acts of sol­i­dar­i­ty in oth­er coun­tries such as T&T, will help root out the prob­lem. He said his hope is that peo­ple will live to­geth­er and choose to stand in sol­i­dar­i­ty.

Mon­del­lo walked through the group of T&T demon­stra­tors who be­gan gath­er­ing at around 1 pm and greet­ed them, thank­ing them for their com­mit­ment to en­sur­ing that their ac­tion did not dis­count T&T’s Pub­lic Health Reg­u­la­tions such as so­cial dis­tanc­ing.

“I have to say that I am very im­pressed with the way they have han­dled this be­cause they have stayed with the so­cial dis­tanc­ing,” Mon­del­lo stat­ed.

“Al­so, the peo­ple are be­ing very friend­ly and there has been no vi­o­lence be­cause I don’t be­lieve in vi­o­lence.”

The Am­bas­sador’s com­ments came less than an hour af­ter a group of al­most 15 peo­ple in­creased to dozens more. This prompt­ed the po­lice to swoop in to en­gage in crowd con­trol due to the COVID-19 mea­sure still in place re­strict­ing gath­er­ing of more than 10 peo­ple.