Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley says public criticism of statements made by former New York Governor David Paterson and former US congressman Edolphus Towns at a People’s National Movement (PNM) rally in Port-of-Spain on Saturday were overboard.
Former head of the public service Reginald Dumas, former foreign affairs minister Ralph Maraj and Housing and Urban Development Minister Dr Roodal Moonilal have all criticised the PNM for inviting the two US officials to speak at the meeting, claiming that they have interfered in the internal affairs of this country. The two were critical of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar. The US Government in a statement issued on Sunday, distanced itself from the comments of the two.
But Rowley told reporters after filing his nomination papers in Carenage yesterday that he was not surprised by the criticism by those whom, he said, were opposed to the PNM. He said he did not expect his opponents to “praise our guests especially if our guests are critical of them, but the level of the criticism might be overboard because these two people among all the other people they were invited.”
He said they were invited to speak because they represented a large body of T&T citizens living in Brooklyn, New York. “These two men who came here came in the context of having represented these people for decades,” he said. Rowley said Towns has been elected 15 times by these Trinidadians in New York so he knows Trinidad people and their culture and their homeland very well. He said Paterson was Governor of the State of New York and he is a very active politician, he has only just been elected Chairman of the Democratic Party of the State of New York. “These are people who associate with T&T nationals for a very long time and they pay attention to us,” he said.
Rowley said: “In so far as they know us and they pay attention to us we have no problem with interacting with them.”
On claims that they may have spoken as US officials, Rowley said: “The point of them speaking for the United States, that was never on the cards. They were never presented as officials of the Government of the United States.”
He said the release by the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain on Sunday “simply confirms what we all know. That they are private citizens, free to come and go as they please and to speak at home and abroad as they please.”
Rowley said he was “not the one to determine what my opponents say about other people. We are of the view that these two gentlemen had allegations made against them of one kind or the other and so have I and so have the prime minister.” Questioned on one of the officials being fined for lying to an ethics committee, Rowley said he did not know that can disqualify someone. He said :”If lying in the Parliament is a disqualification then half of Trinidad’s Parliament is not supposed to be there.”
Rowley said if a PNM wins the election and a cabinet minister tells a lie he or she “will have a very firm reaction from the Prime Minister because members of our parliament have been lying to us so much and if somebody lied abroad and was fined well then you commit an offence and you pay the penalty so I don’t think we should overplay that.” “The bottom line is these two gentlemen have had distinguished careers.”