Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is urg­ing cit­i­zens to read and un­der­stand what a nu­clear sub­ma­rine is to get a bet­ter sense of the sit­u­a­tion the Caribbean finds it­self in with the pres­ence of US naval ves­sels in the re­gion.

Beck­les says she is al­so con­cerned about how this coun­try’s “Cari­com broth­ers and sis­ters” felt when they heard Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar say she did not con­sult the re­gion­al body and in­stead said, “All you talk for your­self; I talk­ing for T&T.”

Beck­les made the com­ments dur­ing a Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment meet­ing in Mor­vant on Tues­day.

Last week, the Unit­ed States an­nounced it was send­ing three US Aegis-class guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­ers to the wa­ters close to Venezuela to com­bat drug car­tels. This week, two more ships were added, in­clud­ing a nu­clear-pow­ered fast-at­tack sub­ma­rine.

Beck­les not­ed that while For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers said T&T wasn’t get­ting in­volved in the US-Venezuela is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar lat­er gave the US her Gov­ern­ment’s full sup­port.

“Aren’t they in the same Cab­i­net? Aren’t they hav­ing Cab­i­net meet­ings? Same thing hap­pened with the State of Emer­gency. Five of them talked, and each gave a dif­fer­ent sto­ry for the SoE,” Beck­les added.

Urg­ing the pub­lic to learn about Cari­com, Beck­les named re­gion­al lead­ers, in­clud­ing the late for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams, for cre­at­ing in 1973 the re­gion­al move­ment now com­pris­ing 15 mem­ber states and six as­so­ciate states.

“When we’re unit­ed as a Cari­com body, no­body can beat us. Cari­com is un­stop­pable. But when peo­ple for­get their his­to­ry, they’re doomed to make se­ri­ous mis­takes.”

Beck­les re­count­ed the US in­va­sion of Grena­da, say­ing it was a chal­leng­ing time for the Caribbean, and not­ed T&T’s po­si­tion on sov­er­eign­ty. She cau­tioned the Gov­ern­ment against mis­lead­ing the pub­lic with one sto­ry to­day and an­oth­er to­mor­row.

“I say to the Prime Min­is­ter, you’re re­spon­si­ble to talk to the peo­ple as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man. When last you see Kam­la be­fore the press?! We don’t want a prime min­is­ter who’s ab­sent or doesn’t want to ap­pear at a press con­fer­ence; you have to stop on­ly send­ing What­sApp mes­sages and press re­leas­es, some gen­er­at­ed by Chat­G­PT. You can’t be the prime min­is­ter and hid­ing.”

Beck­les al­so warned that the State of Emer­gency would end like the last one called by the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ad­min­is­tra­tion in 2011, when al­most 8,000 peo­ple were ar­rest­ed and al­most all got com­pen­sa­tion from the State for un­law­ful ar­rest.

“They go­ing to do the same thing now. De­tain a whole set of peo­ple, then those thou­sands will be paid com­pen­sa­tion!”

The PNM leader al­so ques­tioned a re­port that there was an al­leged $2.3 mil­lion hit on three min­is­ters and re­ports of a Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress lawyer in­volved in the al­leged death threat against De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

“So, if you have all this ev­i­dence, how come no ar­rests?!”

Beck­les called on Per­sad-Bisses­sar to say if Sturge had of­fered his res­ig­na­tion, as was be­ing claimed.

Mean­while, Beck­les said the PNM will hold its con­sul­ta­tions on the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed stand-your-ground leg­is­la­tion af­ter In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions next week.