Pe­ter Bal­roop

Glo­be­trot­ting UNC chair­man Jack Warn­er, like his po­lit­i­cal leader, Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, had his spies in the PNM's an­nu­al con­ven­tion at Ch­aguara­mas, even as he at­tend­ed the mam­moth Voice of the Peo­ple ral­ly in Saith Park, Ch­agua­nas, yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. In a brief ad­dress to the gath­er­ing, pref­aced, and end­ed by Spar­row's 1971 ca­lyp­so, Eco­nom­ic Slav­ery, Warn­er said he was told there were plac­ards on dis­play at the PNM ral­ly warn­ing PNM faith­ful that he was us­ing his mon­ey for po­lit­i­cal gain and want­ed to buy T&T. Warn­er, when wear­ing his next hat as Fi­fa vice-chair­man, is al­ways on the the go out­side T&T, and, in fact, had just re­turned the night be­fore from a four-day trip to Is­rael, and was off again last night.

To the PNM taunt, Warn­er told the Saith Park au­di­ence he agreed that T&T was not for sale.

"Calder Hart buy it al­ready," Warn­er de­clared to cheers from the crowd. He urged them not to be dis­tract­ed by the PNM, who would used "unimag­in­able" tac­tics to sway them away from the uni­ty course be­ing chart­ed by the Op­po­si­tion forces led by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. "They like ku­choor," Warn­er ob­served, adding that he was be­ing served a swathe of writs, aimed at ty­ing him up in court, but he had al­ready hired two Eng­lish QCs to deal with the mat­ters on which he had been served. Watch­ing the crowd wave T&T red, white and black flags with gay aban­don, Warn­er said: "Keep this one love alive. For God's sake, keep it alive."

He said his spies had told him Prime Min­is­ter Patrick Man­ning had promised at the PNM ral­ly yes­ter­day to bring out the PNM faith­ful in full force to Port-of-Spain to sup­port him on April 9, when a no con­fi­dence mo­tion brought by Per­sad-Bisses­sar is to be de­bat­ed in the Low­er House. The Op­po­si­tion, how­ev­er, would speak with their fin­gers, when the time for vot­ing to move the PNM came about, Warn­er vowed. Ex­plain­ing his choice of ca­lyp­so to pref­ace, then close his speech, Warn­er not­ed that 40 years lat­er Spar­row's words were com­ing to pass again. The Trea­sury was again be­ing raped; the pub­lic purse was be­ing plun­dered; a mil­lion ways were be­ing found to break the law and help friends and fam­i­ly to gain rich­es.