Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Fired Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency di­rec­tor re­tired ma­jor Ro­get Best has de­fend­ed his ap­pear­ance at the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress’ (UNC) Gen­er­al Elec­tion Com­mu­ni­ty Meet­ing in Debe on Tues­day night.

Sport­ing a beard and wear­ing a UNC t-shirt dur­ing the meet­ing, Best, when asked about his pres­ence there, summed up his de­ci­sion to at­tend as him “sup­port­ing democ­ra­cy.”

He ex­plained that he came af­ter be­ing in­vit­ed by in­cum­bent Oropouche East MP Dr Roodal Mooni­lal.

Best was placed on ad­min­is­tra­tive leave from the SSA, the coun­try’s top in­tel­li­gence-gath­er­ing agency, in March last year. For­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley took to his Face­book page back then to an­nounce a shake-up at the agency, fol­low­ing a meet­ing of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil. At the time, Row­ley an­nounced in par­lia­ment that the agency had been over­run by a cult.

In May, Best was fired from the SSA and lat­er took le­gal ac­tion over the dis­missal. He was said to be as­sist­ing in a se­ries of in­ves­ti­ga­tions and was ar­rest­ed in May last year and then again in Jan­u­ary this year. He was re­leased both times with­out charge.

At the meet­ing in Debe, Best de­scribed him­self as a “pa­tri­ot” of the State with an un­blem­ished ca­reer for over 30 years.

Asked whether he was sup­port­ing the UNC, he de­clared, “I am sup­port­ing democ­ra­cy.”

As to whether or not he will be seen on the UNC plat­form soon, Best said, “I am a sol­dier and what I will say is, there are many peo­ple with­in the par­ty that has sup­port­ed us, has sup­port­ed those who have been op­pressed, and I am very thank­ful for that.”

He de­nied that he had been ap­proached to con­test a seat in the up­com­ing elec­tion.

“I de­cid­ed to come show my sup­port for Dr Mooni­lal, whom I’ve known for some time, to see what this whole thing is about be­cause I be­lieve right­eous­ness is im­por­tant. Right­eous­ness is the key, and I think every­body in Trinidad and To­ba­go should stand for right­eous­ness.”

He urged the me­dia not to read too much in­to his at­ten­dance.

“I’ve been in oth­er places, so don’t make too much out of this. I still think T&T is a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic coun­try. I don’t think we’re a dic­ta­tor­ship, al­though it may seem so from time to time. But we’re still de­mo­c­ra­t­ic,” Best said.

Mean­while, Mooni­lal, while speak­ing about home in­va­sions while on the plat­form, said the UNC had a wealth of ex­per­tise to tack­le crime, which he said in­clud­ed Best.

“We have Roger Alexan­der with us. We have Mr (De­o­dat) Du­lalchan with us. Dis­tin­guished of­fi­cers Mr John­ny Abra­ham, Ma­jor Best. We now have the man­pow­er. We have the ca­pac­i­ty. We have the ex­per­tise to deal with crime. We have it. Don’t be fooled.”

Guardian Me­dia asked Mooni­lal whether Best was of­fered a po­si­tion in the par­ty or in a pos­si­ble UNC-led gov­ern­ment. He said Best is an ex­pert in de­fence and in­tel­li­gence and “any gov­ern­ment will wel­come such ex­per­tise.”

An­a­lysts: Best’s at­ten­dance won’t sway vot­ers

Po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath said Best show­ing up at the UNC meet­ing and wear­ing the par­ty’s jer­sey does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean any­thing or it could mean that he has cho­sen a side.

“But, we are in­to an elec­tion sea­son and like I tell peo­ple all the time in elec­tions and in pol­i­tics, a day could be as long as a life­time. So, it could be UNC this morn­ing and this evening it could PNM and to­mor­row it could be some­thing else. So, I am not go­ing to as­cribe any po­lit­i­cal po­si­tion­ing to any­body,” Ra­goonath said.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed does not be­lieve that Best’s ap­pear­ance at the meet­ing would have any im­pact on the UNC cam­paign or vot­ers. He said peo­ple were not con­cerned with the­atrics and win­dow dress­ing but about re­al plans and so­lu­tions to is­sues af­fect­ing their dai­ly lives.

“In terms of an im­pact, good grief no. Ab­solute­ly no im­pact, none what­so­ev­er. The coun­try wants an­swers to is­sues, a greater di­a­logue on what are the plans, eco­nom­ic plans, and so­ci­o­log­i­cal plans... I am talk­ing about crime and crim­i­nal­i­ty, se­cu­ri­ty and then there is the is­sue of how you go­ing to cre­ate wealth for the coun­try, not just for the state of T&T but for the peo­ple of T&T and give op­por­tu­ni­ties to young peo­ple,” Mo­hammed said.