Is US Ambassador the boss here?

THE EDITOR: I have just listened to the radio news in which American Ambassador Roy Austin has told a news conference that the barriers outside the US Embassy on Marli Street will remain in place. This have come in the light of the Acting Prime Minister saying last week that the government is investigating that situation. It would seem that the embassy has taken it upon itself to place its guards on a local street to man the barriers which prevent vehicular traffic from going along Marli Street. One should think that if a problem is perceived, “No Parking” signs will do, but no, the mighty United States has to exercise authority which I believe it does not have.

For Mr Austin to tell the news conference that the barriers will stay in position seems to me to be saying to the Trinidad government that, despite whatever investigations it will conduct, Roy Austin has laid the law down and we all know what happens when the United States does not get its way. It is time for the Trinidad government to show some spunk on this issue and stand up, especially for those at the All Saints Church opposite to the embassy who are now feeling the weight of the embassy’s oppression since, according to newspaper reports, churchgoers cannot get to the compound of that church without asking the embassy to allow them to do so. What arrogance?

CLYDE ALPHONSO
Diego Martin