BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - MEMBERS of the Unity Movement are laying blame at the feet of “the political henchman of the Prime Minister” for what they believe to be a sabotage of their public meeting.
SKNVibes understands that the Movement was supposed to have a public meeting on Bank Street yesterday (Dec. 3) commencing at 5:00 p.m. and was to have featured a number of calypsonians, including I-Soursop and Lady Diva.
Those plans were however thwarted when - according to Unity Leader the Hon. Dr. Timothy Harris - they received word that the permission they had been previously granted by police to use noisy instruments at the said meeting was revoked.
The suggestion is that the permission was revoked and given to the Kollision Band - which had a jam session through Basseterre - to foil Unity’s plans of hosting the public meeting.
“We applied for permission well within the time limit provided by law. We are advised by the Deputy Commissioner that the Commissioner himself approved the meeting on the said December 27...It was passed forward for onward action. The Commissioner had left the island sometime subsequent…that was our understanding. On 31st December, the Deputy Commissioner of Police - in writing - confirmed the approval granted to us to hold the public meeting to use noisy instruments at Bank Street for the period requested.
“Lo and behold, yesterday we heard through the grapevine that the political agents of the Prime Minister and his operatives had conspired with the Chairman of the Carnival Committee to have an event that hitherto been unplanned, unlisted, untold, at the same interval that our meeting was to have been held so that they would be overlapping events,” Dr. Harris said.
Harris said the Commissioner subsequently gave direction to his Deputy to withdraw the granted permission.
“The DCP indicated to us that he came out Friday fully prepared to put everything in place to accommodate our public meeting, which - I want to make clear - is a constitutional right. Even up until the end of yesterday - according to the DCP - he has received no application at all from the Carnival Committee about they wanting to hold any event...”
The Unity Leader declared that a particular individual “acted as a political henchman of the Prime Minister to sabotage our meeting”.
He also expressed that the “police erred in law in withdrawing the permission for us to use noisy instruments and they facilitated the sabotage of a public meeting which they themselves in their judgment had previously sanctioned. And they did so without proper basis in law. We further submit to you that the police further erred by refusing us the permission to use noisy instruments while granting the said permission to another entity that had not applied formally to them or otherwise to conduct the procession. It shows bias in the direction given to the police to withdraw”.
SKNVibes made contact with Carnival Chair Sylvester Anthony to ask about the circumstance surrounding the event, and he indicated that he “would not answer any political questions”.
In an interview with SKNVibes, Deputy Commissioner of Police Stafford Liburd indicated that because the Carnival 2013/2014 ends officially on January 5, the Carnival Committee needs not apply for permission to use noisy instruments during the events held within that period. However, “there is a traditionally good relationship within the police force and the Committee, and in the interest of safety and security we work together in finalising the events”.
This publication learned that the Kollision Band only had a few revellers during its jam session yesterday in downtown Basseterre.
Permission has however been granted to the Unity Movement to host a public meeting on Monday (Jan. 6) at Five Ways.
