Dookeran:

POLITICAL Leader of the United National Congress, (UNC), Winston Dookeran said people in and out of Parliament were now confused by his courage and took the view that “politics was infested with criminality.”

I have found myself being tested and I hope that with my action and my work I have silenced those critics who have tested my strength and courage in and out of Parliament,” he said.

“They are now bewildered by my ability to be courageous,” he said, as he delivered an address at the Indian Arrival Day Dinner Ceremony at the Divali Nagar on Saturday night.

Politics, he said, was infested with criminality which he felt, was the source of the problem in the country.

“We must revoke the criminality from the political process once and for all,” he stated.

He also urged Indo-Trinidadians to save the country from further ruin.

“It is that kind of bravery and inner consciousness that we need to chart a course in a move to go forward together to save the country from further ruins,” he said.

“If there are no divisions then it seems that our politicians will have no jobs,” Dookeran said.

He called on the audience to reject the “practice that politics thrives on the basis of divisions, whether they are racial, political or religious or regional. He said no society must tolerate the State’s discrimination against its own people or else “we are going to pay a big price in the future.”

During his walkabout and discussions with various ethnic groups in the community, Dookeran said he was impressed with their outpouring of recommendations “to search for a recipe that would bind this country together.”

“We can build a foundation using the concept of truth, as the highest principle of them all,” he said, adding,“We must find ways and means to now embrace our people, no matter where they come from and in whatever walks of life and from whatever levels.”