PM Douglas says he was met by friendly people
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - RUMOURS which suggested that Prime Minister Dr. Denzil L. Douglas was attacked with bottles and stones while in Nevis for the July 12 Swearing-In Ceremony of the local government have been quelled by the leader himself.
“There seem to have been quite a number of rumours that went around the place last week that when I was in Nevis on Tuesday for the Swearing-In Ceremony, I was attacked and bottles and stones and so forth were thrown at me. Nothing of that kind ever happened, nothing of that kind,” Dr. Douglas said yesterday (July 19) during his radio programme, ‘Ask the PM’.
The rumours, SKNVibes understands, insinuated that supporters of the Concerned Citizens Movement (CCM) launched an attack on Dr. Douglas while he was en route from the Elquemedo Willett Park to the pier in Charlestown, where he was to embark a vessel to take him back to St. Kitts.
Dr. Douglas reiterated that nothing of the sort transpired in Nevis, he encountered no difficulty and was met by a friendly people.
“I found that the people of Nevis were very receptive, I had no difficulty whatsoever. Of course, there were some people demonstrating outside of the park, or who were gathered outside the park…(I) don’t know if they were really demonstrating. I received no hostility at all from that group. In fact, I greeted them and congratulated the leaders of the CCM, who I think would have been among that group, and then I was on my way back to the pier to come back to St. Kitts.
“Some of the supporters of CCM, I believe, came down to the pier and we drove through that group of people. Nobody attacked the vehicle. In fact, that convoy that I was part of had several vehicles. I think in front of me was the Supreme Court Judge, Justice Thomas. Nobody had interfered with his vehicle, nobody interfered with his vehicle, nobody interfered with my vehicle. There was no bottle, there was no stone. So I don’t know why some people who have some political axe to grind would want to suggest in anyway that the people of Nevis demonstrated with violence against a loving Prime Minister and a loving dedicated judge to do their role and function as part of their continuing exercises as public servants.”
Prime Minister Douglas indicated that such “vicious rumours do not do any good to our image and our name”.
He also explained that because of the rumours, he has even had reason to “calm my own people down because people were saying they are going to retaliate and I said no…Nothing of that kind, nothing of that kind ever happened, so there is no need for anything of that kind either”.
