BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – THE heads of the Chamber of Industry and Commerce (CIC), Christian Council (CC) and Evangelical Association (EA) have reconciled their differences over the “boundaries change” communiqué fiasco.
“I am happy to report that the working relationship among our organisations is intact,” said EA President Bishop Ron Dublin-Collins. “We have the highest respect and esteem for one another and we are committed to continuing our work in the social and political arenas.”
The reassurance came after days of a heated dispute that saw Prime Minister Hon. Dr. Denzil Douglas and his ruling St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) entering the fray.
On Tuesday (Nov. 10), the three groups issued a statement warning that “boundary changes so close to the general election...may actually lead to instability”. Douglas and the SKNLP subsequently lashed out against the release and its authors, demanding it be retracted “without delay”.
On Saturday’s (Nov. 7) edition of radio programme “Inside the News”, Sidney Osborne, Chairman of opposition party the People’s Action Movement (PAM), read parts of the joint communiqué - three days before it was disseminated for public scrutiny. Meanwhile, CC Chairman Rev. Isaiah Phillip called the communiqué’s release “malicious” and said his organisation had not agreed to the statement.
According to Dublin-Collins, two different communiqués were circulated, which added to the confusion surrounding the incident.
“The statement Osborne read on Saturday was one that our organisations initially agreed to sign. However, after meeting with the PM on Friday, we decided to change the language a bit and held off on it for several days.
“The release distributed on Tuesday is slightly different to the first one, but we hadn’t finished finalising it. Rev. Phillip and I met with Douglas yesterday and he assured us that he was notified on Saturday about the illegitimacy of the release read by Osborne.”
The bishop stressed that he had no idea about who had given the statement to the PAM Chairman, but said he considered it a “genuine error”. He explained that the release of the second communiqué was not malicious, and promised further details at a joint press conference to be held at CIC headquarters on Monday, November 16.
“I don’t want to give away all the details, because we have a press conference on Monday. But I can promise that all questions pertaining to the incident will be answered by the leaders of our three organisations.”
