UNC calls for inquiry

Embracing enthusiastically the story about the planting of cocaine and missiles at Sadiq Baksh home, the UNC yesterday summoned an emergency caucus and called on Prime Minister Patrick Manning to appoint a Commission of Inquiry into the matter. Political Leader Winston Dookeran said that “no government could afford to ignore the detailed — and presumably documented allegations that activists of the ruling party were conspirators in a plot to plant arms and ammunition” on the premises of a political opponent. “I call on the Prime Minister to recognise this development as a matter of urgent national interest; and to move immediately to advise the President to commission an inquiry into the allegations that members of the governing party were involved in a conspiracy involving illegal arms and ammunition in the run-up to a general election,” he stated.

“The implications of the reported plot are frightening to all citizens,” he said, adding that the matter warranted independent investigation. He said the onus was on the Prime Minister to take “the appropriate action” (and set up the Commission of Inquiry). He said the PM ought not to abdicate his responsibility on this issue. “To do so would be to place the President in a position of having to initiate action in accordance with the powers vested in him by the Commissions of Inquiry Act,” he said. Dookeran said that if the story was true, the plot was yet another instance of the subversion (witnessed since 2001) of the democratic system and the constitution guaranteeing citizens freedom of political association. Dookeran said investigators into the matter appeared to be dragging their feet on the issue.