BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - CONTENSION arose yesterday afternoon (Jan. 3) at Port Zante when members of the Unity Movement accosted Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzil L. Douglas while he was at an establishment in that commercial zone.
SKNVibes understands that after Unity’s Leader Dr. Timothy Harris had informed the people gathered for their Bank Street public meeting that permission to do so was revoked, the group went into the area in protest.
SKNVibes further understands they met Prime Minister Douglas in one of the stores and proceeded to repeatedly shout “Douglas must go, Douglas must go”.
The revocation of the permission was to allow for a Carnival event - a Kollision Band jam through the streets of Basseterre - to take place.
Dr. Harris gave SKNVibes his account of the Port Zante incident explaining that when the group got there and saw the Prime Minister, it merely expressed its disgust by chanting.
“The crowd...having heard...basically took a walk over Port Zante and it was fortuitous. The Prime Minister was seen, as it were, gallivanting and socialising. There were wine and cakes in the particular business place. And the crowd basically vented their disgust and displeasure at the breech in democracy and the continuing unconstitutional conduct of the Prime Minister and his efforts to consolidate a dictatorship in St. Kitts and Nevis. And we did chant that Douglas must go.
“And that message, which is a message we believe ought to resonate, will resonate more and more in the country that we cannot trust our democracy in the hands of an unconstitutional leader...”
According to Dr. Harris, the Prime Minister’s response was one “first of shock, of concern, of fear” and noted that he “did what dictators would have done, and calling in the riot squad and the police...” And the crowd dispersed.
SKNVibes also spoke with Prime Minister Douglas who explained that he had completed a near-two-hour walk through of the Port Zante area after which he partook in light refreshments with one of the merchants.
He said while there a crowd had converged on the outside.
“An attempt by PAM, the discredited leadership of PAM and the PLP to create confusion and confrontation...I had a very successful walk-through of the Port Zante shopping community with my Deputy Prime Minister. At the end of it, we sat down in one of the merchant’s stores to have some light refreshments. And some people came out there it would appear, very boisterous, pounding on the glass window and the glass doors shouting expletives. And it would appear, trying to intimidate the merchant because they can’t intimidate me. And they know they can’t intimidate me, so they must have been trying to intimidate the merchant.
“It is very, very sad because here is a situation where people have been wooed into the country to help to really develop the commercial activities in St. Kitts and Nevis and Port Zante. And to be confronted in this manner by the Leader of the PLP and PAM who are seeking to unseat this government did not go down well, I must tell you, with the onlookers and the merchants and the shoppers and visitors who personally, I believe, saw the blatant hooliganism displayed...”
Contrary to Dr. Harris’ suggestion that the riot squad was summoned to the scene, Dr. Douglas expressed that the “usual patrol of police officers came into the area” and the crowd dispersed.
The Prime Minister said the incident served to allow “people to have a very glim view of what they are like as leaders and that would be what the country would be like under their control and command”.
