An­gry over the failed out­come of the To­ba­go au­ton­o­my bills, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day de­scribed Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley as a “house slave,” as he ac­cused him of ig­nor­ing the needs of To­ba­go’s peo­ple.

Au­gus­tine made these com­ments af­ter the To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment Bill failed in Par­lia­ment.

Ear­li­er in the day, Au­gus­tine had called for more con­sul­ta­tion, stat­ing that the bills do not meet the needs of To­ba­go and its peo­ple.

In re­sponse to Au­gus­tine’s What­sApp re­quest just min­utes be­fore the sit­ting to pro­pose amend­ments, how­ev­er, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley told the House that Au­gus­tine’s at­tempt to stall the process was “pre­pos­ter­ous.”

Af­ter the bills’ fail­ure, Au­gus­tine took to Face­book, say­ing, “Noth­ing is worse than when your rel­a­tive, who sits in the seat of pow­er, is noth­ing but a house slave who ig­nores the re­al dreams and as­pi­ra­tions of those he left be­hind in the field in To­ba­go.”

Au­gus­tine hash­tagged “house slave men­tal­i­ty” and “wicked prime min­is­ter.”

This came af­ter the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Amend­ment (To­ba­go Self-Gov­ern­ment) bill failed to pass af­ter it was re­ject­ed by Op­po­si­tion mem­bers in Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing to re­porters hours lat­er, Au­gus­tine crit­i­cised Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed amend­ments in Par­lia­ment, call­ing them in­con­se­quen­tial. He ar­gued that in­stead of ad­dress­ing crit­i­cal is­sues such as cre­at­ing a re­al fed­er­al sys­tem, defin­ing To­ba­go’s bound­aries, en­sur­ing equal­i­ty be­tween the two is­lands and se­cur­ing To­ba­go’s right to pass laws on lo­cal mat­ters, the Gov­ern­ment fo­cused on pro­pos­als he deemed to be triv­ial changes.

He lament­ed that Gov­ern­ment didn’t in­clude these re­quests in the bill. In­stead, he said they fo­cused on small is­sues like whether To­ba­go’s leader should be called “Chief Sec­re­tary” or “Pre­mier.” He point­ed out that To­bag­o­ni­ans had al­ready re­ject­ed the pre­mier ti­tle in 2021, ask­ing for it to be re­vert­ed to Chief Sec­re­tary. He said that with so many press­ing con­cerns, the ti­tle change was a mi­nor is­sue.

Au­gus­tine al­so an­nounced that he has de­cid­ed to stop fight­ing for au­ton­o­my through Trinidad’s Par­lia­ment. In­stead, he plans to fol­low through with plans to ask the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty for help.

He said, “We’ve tried for so long to make this work through Par­lia­ment, but it seems de­lib­er­ate that they will nev­er get it right.”

Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go has been ask­ing for au­ton­o­my for decades, but not in this way with the of­fer­ing of the ex­ist­ing bills. How­ev­er, he said now he’s con­fi­dent that through in­ter­na­tion­al hu­man rights laws, To­ba­go will get au­ton­o­my with­out the Gov­ern­ment. He said the process to get in­ter­na­tion­al help will start im­me­di­ate­ly.

“Yes, that might be em­bar­rass­ing to Trinidad and To­ba­go but so be it. We have tried enough. Nine­teen sev­en­ty-sev­en to present is a very long time,” he said.

“Gen­er­a­tions of To­bag­o­ni­ans have fought for this. I don’t want my daugh­ter’s gen­er­a­tion to keep fight­ing the same bat­tle.”

He first spoke of his in­ten­tions to go to the world for help dur­ing the To­ba­go Day Awards two week­ends ago.

Speak­ing be­fore an au­di­ence of diplo­mats and am­bas­sadors then, Au­gus­tine said To­ba­go will fight for its right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion un­der in­ter­na­tion­al laws, in­clud­ing the Uni­ver­sal De­c­la­ra­tion of Hu­man Rights, the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Civ­il and Po­lit­i­cal Rights, and the In­ter­na­tion­al Covenant on Eco­nom­ic, So­cial and Cul­tur­al Rights.

Yes­ter­day, he al­so took a jab at the mi­nor­i­ty and PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil, mem­bers ac­cus­ing them of fail­ing to stand up for To­bag­o­ni­ans.

“It’s on­ly the mi­nor­i­ty sell­ing out To­bag­o­ni­ans and de­cid­ing that they will align them­selves with their Trinidad mas­ters, han­dlers and pup­peteers, in­stead of stand with the peo­ple of To­ba­go and stand­ing on these is­sues. They have con­sis­tent­ly sold this is­land out. That’s what you get from house slaves.”

Au­gus­tine al­so de­nied send­ing last-minute pro­pos­als to the Prime Min­is­ter. He ex­plained that the pro­pos­als sent to Row­ley were part of the THA bill and were fi­nalised over the week­end af­ter learn­ing on Thurs­day the de­bate was set for Mon­day. To en­sure quick de­liv­ery, he said he sent them via What­sApp.

“What was sent this morn­ing was not new to the Prime Min­is­ter, the PNM, the Op­po­si­tion or Par­lia­ment. They al­ways knew these were the things To­ba­go want­ed. They were sent down to Trinidad via a bill done in the as­sem­bly.”

He al­so de­nied that the rec­om­men­da­tions sent to Row­ley be­fore the de­bate dif­fered from those out­lined in the let­ter co-signed by de­ceased for­mer chief sec­re­tary Ho­choy Charles and him­self.

He said the Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment had rushed the bill in­to Par­lia­ment with­out con­sult­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans prop­er­ly.

Asked if he feels the bill has reached its end, Au­gus­tine dis­agreed, say­ing he will get two in­de­pen­dent MPs for To­ba­go East and West—in the up­com­ing Gen­er­al Elec­tion— vot­ed in­to Par­lia­ment to make an­oth­er push for au­ton­o­my. He said he be­lieves this is the on­ly way to en­sure the is­sue is tak­en se­ri­ous­ly.