Slams PM Rowley for uninspiring UN Speech
From Rodney Charles
Dr Rowley’s UNGA statements on crime failed to assure citizens, travel advisory writers, potential investors and the global community that TT is working diligently on becoming a safe place.
Never again will TT have such a golden opportunity to impress on the global community that we have what it takes to develop a comprehensive, well thought out crime plan signaling unambiguously that we are masters of our destiny and not victims of others.
With a President of the General Assembly gifted by the past PP administration, Dr Rowley’s singular challenge at the UNGA was to impress the global community about our capacity to handle our challenges.
Specifically, Dr Rowley’s main job was to reassure authors of travel advisories, citizens in the diaspora, investors and potential tourists that we are a post colonial, independent nation capable of dealing frontally with crime.
In this he failed miserably.
Contrast with Ukraine’s President Zelenski who had two jobs at the UN: firstly demonize Russia and secondly plead for more military assistance by presenting Ukraine as a country on the frontlines of democracy.
Zelenski succeeded in both missions raising billions in the process.
To highlight the mass murders in Guanapo and beg the US to confront its gun manufacturers is to not understand the NRA and its stranglehold on US domestic politics.
The US cannot even get background checks for citizens wishing to purchase military style assault rifles.
To lay hopes at the doorsteps of a failed Arms Trade Treaty is not to comprehend the power of the gun lobby to hamstrung repeated attempts to rein in US gun manufacturers and control the movement of small arms and ammunitions
To praise, as a panacea and in the absence of measurable results, the failed CARICOM regional conference on “crime as a public health emergency” demonstrates globally Rowley’s impotence in dealing with crime.
The world is now aware that we have an entire family wiped out this week through gun violence and that the Government seems unable to deal with it.
Stop begging Dr Rowley. Stop playing victim.
Tell the world that we deserve to be a nation and that we can handle our stories.
Dr Rowley should have told the world the steps being taken to get our Coast and Air Guards to do their work and patrol our borders 24/7. Then like Zelenski, solicit international help specifically with naval assets, intel gathering technology and Coast Guard officer training.
He should have emphasized increased budget allocations in 2024 for scanners for our ports of entry. He should have solicited help in this regard.
He should have talked about using our army to set up numerous small, 24/7 patrols in coastal areas where the arms, ammunition and human traffickers arrive on our shores.
It is TT’s job, and TT’s job alone, to stop the guns from entering our country. Not blame others, play victim and expose our sores to the world.
Bilateral meetings on the margins of the UNGA should have been with countries that can help us with our seemingly intractable crime challenge. This did not seem to be the case. Did we schedule meetings with nearby drug manufacturing countries?
We knew since 2013 that we would fill the CARICOM rotational seat of the PGA in 2023. Rowley should have had a plan in place to make it work for us. Apparently they did nothing, repeatedly fooling themselves that there was some election for the post. Those of us very familiar with UN rules knew better and so advised the government.
My concern is that, like the oil and gas which God gave us and which we never used to diversify our economy, we will ask ourselves next UNGA, what tangible benefits did we derive from holding the PGA in 2023?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind.
