Panday lashes Gift and Arthur

OPPOSITION LEADER Basdeo Panday yesterday condemned Foreign Affairs Minister Knowlson Gift for allegedly ordering charges be dropped against two Barbadian fishermen and Barbadian Prime Minister Owen Arthur for attempting to bully Trinidad and Tobago for its natural resources.

Police sources claimed on Monday that the case against two Barbadian fishermen held for fishing in TT waters was dropped on Gift’s instructions. Panday described Gift’s alleged action as “a total breach of the Constitution.” “This is dictatorship of the highest order. When the political directorate could decide who the police should charge and who they should not. The Prime Minister should fire him (Gift) immediately,” the UNC leader declared.

Panday then challenged the Barbadian PM to prove that according to international law, TT’s 1990 maritime treaty with Venezuela was not relevant to Barbados.  “Let him (Arthur) prove it,” Panday declared. He said Arthur’s strategy was clearly to “bulldoze and bully” TT for a share of its natural resources and the Government must stand firm on this matter.  Panday added that TT was a sovereign, independent nation which was free to enter into treaties with any nation as it saw fit. Last week, Prime Minister Patrick Manning said the current TT-Venezuela Maritime Delimitation Treaty could not be unilaterally rejected without harming TT’s relations with Venezuela and other Latin American nations.

The former prime minister maintained that the TT-Barbados fishing dispute could still be resolved bilaterally and going to the United Nations and the International Tribunal on the Law of the Sea would only apply should TT be in violation of any international law. Manning and Arthur held private talks in Barbados on Monday and Cabinet was due to meet in special session yesterday to discuss those talks. Manning was accompanied to those talks by Gift and Trade Minister Ken Valley.