Moonilal accuses PM of bullying the US

Prime Minister Patrick Manning is being accused of attempting to “bully” the United States into supporting its bid to be the site of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) headquarters. The accusation came from UNC MP Roodal Moonilal as he spoke on the Association of Caribbean States (ACS) bill in the House of Representatives yesterday. Moonilal said Trinidad and Tobago was being blanked by major countries at every turn as it sought support for its FTAA bid.

“The Dominican Republic rejected the offer of the member for Diego Martin Central (Trade Minister Ken Valley) and gave their support to Miami as the headquarters of the FTAA,” he said. “The Dominican Republic (DR) gave this support only a few days after the government led a mission to the DR to promote its campaign for the FTAA headquarters and the mission included the member for San Fernando West (Diane Seukeran). I told them that if they stay away from people country, we might quicker get the headquarters. The problem here is when they know you,” he said. Moonilal asked whether government made its case to member states of the ACS to promote its campaign for the headquarters of the FTAA. “Rather than run helter skelter up and down the hemisphere chasing people down to get support and as soon as we take the plane and leave their country they support somebody else,” he said.

Moonilal said Guatemala, another member of the ACS, announced its endorsement of Miami as the location for the FTAA headquarters. “Guatemala gone!” he said. He said the response of the Trinidad and Tobago government has been “outrageous and imbecilic,” with Manning suggesting that TT could take “criminal control” of the Eastern seaboard of the United States if it didn’t support it for the FTAA headquarters. Moonilal stated that whatever people might think about George W Bush, he was a man of enormous resolve. “And it may not be the best policy threatening the US administration,” he said. Referring to Manning’s speech in which he talked about the importance of the Caribbean to American security, Moonilal said if one read between the lines, Manning was threatening to unleash terrorists, drug barons  and other criminal elements on the US if it didn’t support Trinidad and Tobago’s bid.

“Is this the godfather of the Caribbean becoming the ‘Don’ of the Caribbean?” he asked, adding that Manning was also telling the US how important this country was to the security of its energy supplies. Moonilal said he understood that TT’s FTAA bid proposal was 12 pages long, and was a “brown paper bag” proposal. He called on government to table the proposal in Parliament. At one point, House Speaker Barry Sinanan rose to tell Moonilal the bill dealt with the ACS and that he was spending too much time on the FTAA. Opposition Leader Basdeo Panday exclaimed: “Jesus Christ! Foolishness!” Moonilal also called on government to launch a “full-scale”  investigation into the violation of human and labour rights of the CEPEP workers in Grenada. He said the Opposition must be involved in this investigation. “And there must be no conflict of interest,” he said, referring to the Intelysis Corporation’s investigation of the Landate affair and the NLCB. “You cannot have a company being paid by the executive and investigating an arm of the executive,” Moonilal stated.