Renu­ka Singh

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley yes­ter­day apol­o­gised for a mix-up on his so­cial me­dia page that lewd to him re­leas­ing a state­ment link­ing the mur­der of teenag­er Ashan­ti Ri­ley to the drowned Venezue­lan mi­grants. How­ev­er, he is not apol­o­gis­ing for the sen­ti­ment be­hind his re­marks on the Venezue­lan mi­grant is­sue.

Yes­ter­day, Row­ley post­ed the two dis­parate thoughts in a sin­gle post that blast­ed the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS), the Op­po­si­tion and naysay­ing Trinida­di­ans and Venezue­lans.

But de­spite an apol­o­gy af­ter the post drew crit­i­cism on so­cial me­dia and a de­ci­sion to sub­se­quent­ly post sep­a­rate com­ments on the is­sues, Row­ley said he was stand­ing by the sen­ti­ment ex­pressed on the Venezue­lan mi­grant mat­ter.

"They lie on my coun­try, I kick them in the balls," he said in a text mes­sage re­sponse which in­clud­ed an emo­ji of a foot­ball, af­ter Guardian Me­dia sought fur­ther clar­i­fi­ca­tion on his post yes­ter­day.

"There was a mix-up caused by me in the post­ing of the two sep­a­rate is­sues. I take full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty and apol­o­gised for the mix-up and its ef­fects."

The post be­gan by ex­press­ing re­morse to teenage mur­der vic­tim Ri­ley's fam­i­ly but then segued in­to the Venezue­lans who lost their lives at sea while try­ing to cross the bor­der to Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"To Ashan­ti’s fam­i­ly and all oth­er mem­bers of fam­i­lies who ex­pe­ri­ence this un­speak­able hurt, I share your pain. Our grief comes in dou­ble dos­es. As we bury our dead, we con­tin­ue to re­ceive up­dat­ed news of the trag­ic loss of many lives off the coast in Venezuela," Row­ley said in the post.

"But do you see agents of the OAS, our Op­po­si­tion and oth­er Trinida­di­an and Venezue­lan imps and agents are ly­ing in the face of the avail­able in­for­ma­tion and ev­i­dence that we have? These imps have now been push­ing a nar­ra­tive that these il­le­gals and their crim­i­nal traf­fick­ers reached Trinidad but our au­thor­i­ties here turned them back and that is why they drowned in wa­ters off the coast of Venezuela at Guiria. This is their lie!"

Row­ley de­nied that the T&T Coast Guard met with this group of mi­grants.

"Our Coast Guard nev­er saw or in­ter­act­ed with these traf­fick­ers and their car­go. These liars who op­er­ate in Venezuela and in Trinidad and To­ba­go now know that THEY are now to be held crim­i­nal­ly ac­count­able, not on­ly for en­cour­ag­ing Venezue­lans to break the law in try­ing to pen­e­trate our bor­ders but ac­tu­al­ly, phys­i­cal­ly ar­rang­ing their dan­ger­ous trans­port and il­le­gal re­cep­tion in Trinidad," Row­ley said in the post.

"The law will take its course in every in­stance in Trinidad and To­ba­go but in the mean­time we ad­vise all, in­clud­ing lo­cal do-good­ers and the in­ter­na­tion­al press and agen­cies, to cease and de­sist from en­cour­ag­ing and ex­pos­ing or­di­nary Venezue­lans to risk their lives in the wa­ters be­tween our two na­tions.

"It might ap­pear to some to be a short jour­ney but these wa­ters are very dan­ger­ous and they should not risk their lives nor their chil­dren’s fu­ture to come to Trinidad and To­ba­go, il­le­gal­ly, where cur­rent­ly the bor­ders are closed in a pan­dem­ic and the on­ly le­gal way to en­ter is by way of an ap­pli­ca­tion through a visa."

He added, "Cur­rent­ly, we, the peo­ple of the tiny na­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go, lo­cat­ed in the mouth of the Orinoco Riv­er of Venezuela, are host­ing just over 16,000 reg­is­tered Venezue­lan mi­grants who are pro­tect­ed in neigh­bourli­ness, un­der the au­thor­i­ty of the Gov­ern­ment and the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"We, the Gov­ern­ment, re­ceive no help from any agency to look af­ter these mi­grants, many of whom are rel­a­tive­ly re­cent ar­rivals who en­tered or were traf­ficked to our coun­try il­le­gal­ly. Nonethe­less, last year, in em­pa­thy, we reg­is­tered them all and al­low them to try and make an hon­est liv­ing with­in our bor­ders. Most of them pur­sue this path of­fered to them.

"How­ev­er, re­gard­less of the po­lit­i­cal or eco­nom­ic af­fairs in Venezuela, or any oth­er ter­ri­to­ry, all per­sons in­ter­act­ing with Trinidad and To­ba­go must do so un­der an un­der­stand­ing that we all do so in strict ac­cor­dance with the laws of Trinidad and To­ba­go."

The post im­me­di­ate­ly re­ceived harsh crit­i­cism, with sev­er­al peo­ple call­ing for more sym­pa­thy for the de­ceased.

Row­ley al­so de­nied that he sub­se­quent­ly took down the posts be­cause of any back­lash.

"I live with back­lash every day and don't shy away from my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty if some­thing goes wrong. I ac­cept my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when­ev­er I have to. This is one such time," he told Guardian Me­dia.

But Row­ley al­so took a sub­tle shot at Op­po­si­tion leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

"The sep­a­rate ideas are mine, not pla­gia­rised. I mixed them up and the post­ing," he said.

Back in No­vem­ber, Per­sad-Bisses­sar's com­mu­ni­ca­tion team said an "ad­min­is­tra­tive er­ror" led to it pla­gia­ris­ing a con­grat­u­la­to­ry mes­sage to US Pres­i­dent-elect Joe Biden sent by British politi­cian Sir Keir Starmer.

"I apol­o­gise and take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. Pun­to fi­nal," Row­ley said of his er­ror yes­ter­day, be­fore adding he was go­ing to post the two sep­a­rate ideas to his page.

"That is what it was sup­posed to be on MY page as I want­ed to do be­fore I mixed it up," he added.

In re­sponse to the then delet­ed post, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Row­ley had "lost touch with re­al­i­ty."

In a me­dia re­lease, Per­sad-Bisses­sar called Row­ley's post an "unimag­in­ably shame­ful state­ment."

"In­vok­ing the re­cent hor­rif­ic mur­der of teenag­er Ashan­ti Ri­ley, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley at­tempt­ed to blame both Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Amer­i­can States (OAS) and the Op­po­si­tion UNC for the trag­ic death of mi­grants while at­tempt­ing to reach our shores," she said.

"Kei­th Row­ley knows he is guilty of fail­ing to craft a prop­er refugee pol­i­cy, as well as in se­cur­ing our bor­ders. Judg­ing by his non­sen­si­cal so­cial me­dia post, which has since been delet­ed, he is clear­ly at­tempt­ing to mount an in­san­i­ty plea in his de­fence."

Per­sad-Bisses­sar called for a full in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the mat­ter and how it linked to hu­man traf­fick­ing. She al­so de­scribed as "most bizarre," Row­ley con­tin­u­ing his row with the OAS.

"It is not a co­in­ci­dence that the on­ly oth­er per­son to at­tack the OAS in this dis­grace­ful man­ner is Row­ley’s al­ly, Nico­las Maduro. One must now ask if Kei­th Row­ley is do­ing Maduro’s bid­ding?" she asked

"The cur­rent refugee cri­sis is not go­ing to dis­ap­pear any­time soon. It re­quires de­ci­sive, clear, and sane lead­er­ship. Sad­ly, for our na­tion, these qual­i­ties ap­pear be­yond Kei­th Row­ley."