Congress of the People leader Winston Dookeran has expressed disbelief over statements by Prime Minister Patrick Manning that an organisation was plotting to kill him. Speaking to COP supporters at Canque Village, Biche, on Tuesday night, Dookeran accused Manning of using "the politics of fear" to win support. He said Manning must explain why it took him more than a year to disclose the alleged plot. He also called on Manning to provide the facts of the matter and to say why he did not report it to the police.
Dookeran said a plot to assassinate the Prime Minister was a serious national security matter and Manning was treating the issue frivolously as chairman of the National Security Council. "The Prime Minister is using the politics of fear. He has suddenly decided that he is up for assassination by an unknown group. He said if he had reported the matter, there would have been bloodshed on the streets. Manning concocted his story. But if the story is true, he has to tell us why it took him a year to say it," Dookeran said.
He claimed that Manning was trying to instil fear in the population so that he could win sympathetic support. "This is a sinister political plot by Manning to create fear, to have secrecy and ignorance. We are gripped in this politics of fear. But we in the congress believe that politicians must give up this type of politics which survives by making people frightened and ignorant. We want to introduce a message of the politics of hope," Dookeran said.
Dookeran also took stabs at Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday, who he said was also using politics of fear by making allegations of ethnic cleansing. "Recently we had an issue of ethnic cleansing and inflammatory remarks by the Opposition. We are living in harmony, but they have introduced the concept of ethnic conflict, inflaming racial tension. It is the exercise of the politics of fear and we must stop this at once," Dookeran said. He said politicians must work to stop racial tension.
"This plan of raising racial tensions is not a plan by Panday alone. It is a plan by Manning and Panday together. Once they raise the issue of race, both of them feel they can get their blocks agitated. COP is here with an alternative. "In this party, we have men and women who have fought the battles. We want to change this hostile environment of race to an environment of reason," Dookeran said.