Akash Sama­roo

The con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing Stu­art Young’s at­ten­dance at to­day’s fi­nal night of the Di­vali Na­gar is now a moot ar­gu­ment, as Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has re­turned to the coun­try and has con­firmed his at­ten­dance.

Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) pres­i­dent De­oroop Teemal yes­ter­day con­firmed that Dr Row­ley will be their fea­ture speak­er tonight.

Teemal said it is tra­di­tion for who­ev­er is Prime Min­is­ter to speak on the clos­ing night of the event and this year is no dif­fer­ent.

But had Young still been act­ing as Prime Min­is­ter to­day, the NCIC would have still re­sist­ed the pres­sure from the lo­cal chap­ter of the Glob­al Or­gan­i­sa­tion for Peo­ple of In­di­an Ori­gin (GO­PIO) to re­scind the in­vi­ta­tion sent to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM).

In a let­ter to the NCIC on Mon­day, GO­PIO TT spec­u­lat­ed that Young would be at­tend­ing as act­ing Prime Min­is­ter in the ab­sence of Row­ley, who went to the Com­mon­wealth Heads of Gov­ern­ment Meet­ing (CHOGM) in Samoa last week.

The let­ter said it would be im­prop­er for Young to speak on such a holy plat­form con­sid­er­ing his re­cent con­tro­ver­sy in Par­lia­ment, where he was caught hurl­ing sala­cious in­sults at the Op­po­si­tion Leader in a “hot mic” in­ci­dent.

But Teemal said the in­vite was sent to the OPM and not any par­tic­u­lar per­son.

“As far as we are con­cerned, the in­vi­ta­tion was ex­tend­ed to the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter (OPM) and we do not in­tend to re­scind the in­vi­ta­tion be­cause it was for the (OPM), we are deal­ing with the of­fice and not in­di­vid­u­als,” Teemal ex­plained.

How­ev­er, an in­ter­nal con­flict has bro­ken out in GO­PIO over the is­sue.

Hours af­ter Guardian Me­dia pub­lished con­tents of the let­ter stamped by GO­PIO TT and sent to the NCIC, GO­PIO’s par­ent body con­demned the ac­tion in an email sent to the lo­cal chap­ter’s sec­re­tary and pres­i­dent.

GO­PIO’s Caribbean co­or­di­na­tor Deo Go­sine told the lo­cal of­fi­cials that the let­ter which likened Young to the Hin­du de­mon God Ra­vana was, “sur­pris­ing, ill-ad­vised and does not rep­re­sent GO­PIO’s pol­i­cy, and im­me­di­ate dis­cus­sions must be had to with­draw the same.”

Go­sine al­leged that GO­PIO’s T&T sec­re­tary Karan Nan­coo met him at the Na­gar last Sun­day and said that the UNC asked him to write to the NCIC to with­draw Young’s in­vi­ta­tion.

In the email, Go­sine said, “I ad­vised Mr Nan­coo that GO­PIO should not get in­volved in par­ty pol­i­tics in Trinidad and To­ba­go and as such, no let­ter should be sent to the NCIC un­til fur­ther con­sul­ta­tion. I am sad­dened and dis­ap­point­ed to learn that such a let­ter was sent to the NCIC and fur­ther­more, the con­tents were made avail­able to the press.”

Go­sine said how GO­PIO TT pres­i­dent Ra­jen­dra Sa­hadeosingh claimed he had no knowl­edge of the let­ter.

“This is a very se­ri­ous mat­ter. The NCIC has spent near­ly $5 mil­lion to pro­mote this event and of course, the plum is al­ways the Prime Min­is­ter’s vis­it. Hav­ing a de­ter­rent like this, we want to be no part of this unau­tho­rised cor­re­spon­dence,” Go­sine said.

But GO­PIO TT sec­re­tary Nanan said he nev­er re­ceived any in­struc­tion from the UNC to draft the let­ter.

“No, I nev­er did that, I nev­er said that to him, that is not so at all. And fur­ther to that, I am won­der­ing why is he say­ing that. So, it ap­pears as though if any con­tro­ver­sy ex­ists, it is with­in and it is not from out­side,” Nanan told Guardian Me­dia.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar cat­e­gor­i­cal­ly de­nied her par­ty had any in­volve­ment in the mat­ter.

Fur­ther­more, Nanan said he did not see a rea­son to with­draw his let­ter to the NCIC be­cause his­tor­i­cal­ly, the lo­cal chap­ter has nev­er had to con­sult with the par­ent or­gan­i­sa­tion be­fore putting out a state­ment.

“Nev­er have we done any­thing where we had to con­sult with the in­ter­na­tion­al or re­gion­al co-or­di­na­tor. We nev­er knew that every­thing we do we had to con­sult them and that is not so at all. So, be­cause peo­ple may have per­son­al agen­das it prob­a­bly tick­led them in the wrong place,” Nanan said.

Nanan said their po­si­tion was a-po­lit­i­cal and had more to do with de­fend­ing a woman of In­di­an ori­gin, as he be­lieves too of­ten, peo­ple of In­di­an de­scent face at­tacks in this coun­try with­out any re­sponse.

“For too long, In­di­ans are be­ing at­tacked in this coun­try, and peo­ple keep ask­ing ‘What is GO­PIO do­ing?’ Well, I think enough is enough and we de­cid­ed to stand up in favour of our peo­ple. The bot­tom line is Stu­art Young at­tacked a per­son of In­di­an de­scent and if he had at­tacked any­body else, I would say he was out of tim­ing,” Nanan ar­gued.

How­ev­er, Nanan did ad­mit he spoke with Go­sine be­fore about their in­ten­tions and he was told GO­PIO’s par­ent body would not sup­port such a stance. Nanan said he did make a com­mit­ment that the let­ter would be shelved, but was un­able to con­tact his as­sis­tant sec­re­tary be­fore the let­ter was sent to the me­dia and the NCIC.

Mean­while, GO­PIO TT pres­i­dent Ra­jen­dra Sa­hadeosingh said the let­ter was sent to the NCIC pre­ma­ture­ly and with­out the par­ent body’s ap­proval. He said there was an ini­tial dis­cus­sion about tak­ing a stance as it re­lat­ed to in­sults hurled against Per­sad-Bisses­sar, but it had noth­ing to do with de­fend­ing her as the po­lit­i­cal leader of the UNC. Sa­hadeosingh said the in­ten­tion was to de­fend a woman of east In­di­an de­scent who is al­so of the Hin­du faith. He said he was un­aware of the par­ent body’s re­sis­tance to the let­ter un­til Tues­day morn­ing.

GO­PIO TT is al­so be­ing sup­port­ed by Crim­i­nal Bar As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Is­rael Khan, SC.

Khan sup­ports GO­PIO call

In a state­ment to the me­dia yes­ter­day, Khan said, “Stu­art Young should be ve­he­ment­ly con­demned for his out of place vul­gar and wicked re­marks made against the leader of the Op­po­si­tion, who is in­ci­den­tal­ly an East In­di­an woman, much loved and ad­mired by the women of the coun­try as a per­son of grace, el­e­gance and kind­ness to all. And the cel­e­bra­tion of Di­vali is the con­quest of light over dark­ness and Stu­art Young should not be per­mit­ted to pol­lute the sa­cred lights of Di­vali cel­e­bra­tion at the Na­gar.”

Mean­while, PNM Sen­a­tor Avinash Singh ques­tioned where GO­PIO TT was when he was un­der at­tack in 2013.

In a post to his Face­book page, Singh said in 2013 while he was con­test­ing the Ch­agua­nas West by-elec­tion, Per­sad Bisses­sar used the Hin­du holy book, the Bha­gavad Gi­ta, to call on vot­ers to re­ject him as a can­di­date.

“Where was this so-called GO­PIO when that high­ly cod­ed mes­sage was be­ing spewed against me for of­fer­ing my­self as a can­di­date for the PNM in 2013?” Singh ques­tioned.