Renu­ka Singh

A protest out­side the Kingstown Par­lia­ment build­ing in St Vin­cent and the Grenadines turned bloody yes­ter­day, as the coun­try’s Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves was pelt­ed with sev­er­al pro­jec­tiles, one of which con­nect­ed with the side of his head.

Al­though the Prime Min­is­ter was with his se­cu­ri­ty, one mis­sile came from just be­hind and above and hit him on the head.

Pic­tures and videos soon be­gan to cir­cu­late on so­cial me­dia, show­ing Gon­salves sit­ting with his white shirt blood­ied. In one video, his se­cu­ri­ty team could be heard scream­ing for shields to pro­tect him af­ter he was hit.

The first short clip which was wide­ly cir­cu­lat­ed was shot by St Vin­cent­ian free­lance jour­nal­ist JP Schw­mon.

Schw­mon spoke with Guardian Me­dia last night and gave his first-hand ac­count of the un­fold­ing events.

Yes­ter­day, the Par­lia­ment in St Vin­cent pi­lot­ed leg­is­la­tion to make vac­cines manda­to­ry for all front­line work­ers and while there has been push­back by the cit­i­zens, this was the first sign of vi­o­lence against the leader of the coun­try.

Schw­mon said the Pub­lic Ser­vice Union (PSU), along with the Teach­ers' Union and the Po­lice Wel­fare As­so­ci­a­tion, held a joint me­dia brief­ing the day be­fore and called for peo­ple to hit the streets in protest of the manda­to­ry vac­cine for front­line work­ers.

Schw­mon said that in St Vin­cent, every­body is con­sid­ered a “front­line” work­er.

“The mid­dle class here works for the gov­ern­ment, pret­ty much. So mom­my and dad­dy are po­lice or a doc­tor or work with the hos­pi­tal or the clin­ic,” he said.

“A few of them took to the streets to­day and the Prime Min­is­ter de­cid­ed that he would not ride in­to the Par­lia­ment yard like he would nor­mal­ly.”

Schw­mon said he was not sure if that was be­cause the crowd barred his en­try or he just took the de­ci­sion to walk among the peo­ple.

Gon­salves, he said, was slight­ly ahead of his se­cu­ri­ty de­tail when the mis­sile throw­ing be­gan and while se­cu­ri­ty tried to cov­er him, they were be­ing hit too and be­gan call­ing for pro­tec­tive shields at that point.

“He was pret­ty much ex­posed and peo­ple say him com­ing. The mis­sile came from be­hind,” he said.

“I was fac­ing him and he was walk­ing to­ward me and he was out front,” Schw­mon added.

He said that Gon­salves usu­al­ly walked ahead of his se­cu­ri­ty and was one to greet the peo­ple as he en­tered Par­lia­ment.

“But in this par­tic­u­lar state of ag­i­ta­tion, that was woe­ful­ly ill-ad­vised,” Schw­mon said.

Schw­mon said af­ter the first stone, there was a bot­tle and then an­oth­er stone be­fore Gon­salves was hus­tled out by his se­cu­ri­ty team.

Four days ago, Gon­salves was re­port­ed as say­ing that there was too much mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion and mis­un­der­stand­ing in the pub­lic do­main about the amend­ment and that there would be no le­gal pun­ish­ment for any­one who re­fused to take the vac­cine.

Lo­cal­ly, Min­is­ter of For­eign Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne said he had been in con­tact with his col­leagues in St Vin­cent about the sit­u­a­tion and has con­veyed the prayers from T&T.

On so­cial me­dia though, Gon­salves re­ceived both sym­pa­thy and more threats. While some called for swift ac­tion against the of­fend­ing pro­test­er, an­oth­er warned that more was com­ing.

The Par­lia­men­tary ses­sion con­tin­ued af­ter the in­ci­dent, with Gon­salves' col­leagues con­demn­ing the at­tack on the Prime Min­is­ter.

Schw­mon said the pro­tes­tors con­tin­ued their ac­tion out­side the build­ing af­ter the at­tack and while the crowd dwin­dled, some pro­tes­tors re­mained.