Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Op­po­si­tion Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les has called on Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to say whether or not a re­cent se­nior State board ap­pointee is the at­tor­ney with “close ties to the UNC Gov­ern­ment” who is al­leged to be a “con­spir­a­tor” in the plot to kill De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge.

“Since min­is­ters have con­firmed that the threat against Min­is­ter Sturge is very re­al, there are many ques­tions which the Prime Min­is­ter, who is Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair­man, must an­swer for the pub­lic, in­clud­ing af­ter the Cab­i­net meets on the is­sue,” Gon­za­les said yes­ter­day.

It was re­port­ed that the threat arose when Sturge re­sist­ed pres­sure of de­mands to hire cer­tain peo­ple for jobs in his To­co/San­gre Grande con­stituen­cy (in­clud­ing in the URP) and at state lev­el. Con­spir­a­tors were said to be an at­tor­ney with “close ties” to the UNC Gov­ern­ment,” il­le­gal quar­ry op­er­a­tors from To­co and San­ta Cruz and a se­nior mil­i­tary of­fi­cer.

Gon­za­les said, “My dear PM. I grew up in a very tra­di­tion­al vil­lage (Paramin) around my par­ents and spent a lot of time with my grand­par­ents and el­der­ly folks. I will of­fer you some ad­vice that they im­part­ed on me: ‘Don’t make deals with the Dev­il be­cause he does have a pay­day!’

“Even in my own con­stituen­cy, I’ve been re­li­ably in­formed that crim­i­nals were paid and deals were made with crim­i­nal el­e­ments in or­der to gain po­lit­i­cal mileage in the East-West cor­ri­dor, and this in­volved lead­ing fig­ures as­so­ci­at­ed with the UNC,” Gon­za­les claimed.

“So, what is be­ing un­cov­ered now with threats shouldn’t be sur­pris­ing to the UNC Gov­ern­ment and the Prime Min­is­ter, be­cause those in the UNC should know what oc­curred in their par­ty. Or at least ought to have known what was tak­ing place and who their mem­bers were as­so­ci­at­ing with in or­der to gain po­lit­i­cal pow­er. It has now raised big prob­lems for their ad­min­is­tra­tion.”

Gon­za­les said as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter in April—be­fore the Gen­er­al Elec­tion—he had warned T&T that the UNC’s af­fil­i­a­tion with some peo­ple shar­ing their po­lit­i­cal plat­forms had se­ri­ous im­pli­ca­tions for na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty.

“I put the coun­try on no­tice of what was tak­ing place when I spoke at the open­ing of the San Rafael Po­lice Sta­tion, warn­ing that for­eign se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies were watch­ing some elec­tion can­di­dates. Now, less than six months af­ter the elec­tion, we’re con­front­ed with death threats for no less than the De­fence Min­is­ter, and the pub­lic has to en­dure a State of Emer­gency based on the flawed de­ci­sions of the PM and her team who made their elec­tion plans.”

Gon­za­les said Per­sad-Bisses­sar, as Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Coun­cil chair, should by now have a very clear pic­ture of the sit­u­a­tion from se­cu­ri­ty agen­cies’ in­for­ma­tion and re­ports, in­clud­ing what is in the pub­lic do­main.

“There­fore, she must clear the air on the threat against her De­fence Min­is­ter and al­so say who is this at­tor­ney with ‘close ties to the UNC Gov­ern­ment’ who re­port­ed­ly is among the con­spir­a­tors, how close are this at­tor­ney’s ‘ties to the UNC ad­min­is­tra­tion’, what ex­act­ly is their af­fil­i­a­tion to the UNC Gov­ern­ment, and do they do work for the UNC now? Or pre­vi­ous­ly? Were they re­cent­ly ap­point­ed to a key state board, and at what lev­el—or not?”

He added, “Ul­ti­mate­ly, the Prime Min­is­ter as head of Gov­ern­ment, holds the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, as all de­ci­sions are hers, so she must pro­vide in­for­ma­tion, par­tic­u­lar­ly on a threat of such a grave na­ture, to a mem­ber of her Gov­ern­ment.”

Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­ply yes­ter­day to Guardian Me­dia’s query on the is­sue.