THE PRIME Minister is a vigorous advocate for the Caribbean as a zone of peace.
But that, it seems, does not extend to his relationship with the media, with whom he warred on December 12.
At a media conference, Dr Rowley hailed fire and brimstone on this newspaper over the contents of a front-page article covering the recent signing of agreements to facilitate co-operation between Trinidad and Tobago and the US Department of Defense.
The PM took issue with the suggestion that certain provisions would allow the deployment of US troops here in the event of a “conflict” with Venezuela.
“We are not supporting anybody’s military excursion,” Dr Rowley said. “It is the opposite. We don’t countenance, one, a breach of the peace in the region and, two, we will not facilitate any such thing.”
But when confronted with whether the measures signed contain clauses permitting the arrival of US personnel, the PM fell short of contradicting this.
We stand by our story.
If the PNM leader has a job to do, so do we.
The facts are that on December 10, when these agreements were signed, Dr Rowley convened no conference.
Nor did he or any member of his Cabinet do so on December 11.
The PM did not even intend to hold one on December 12, but a headline he disliked forced his hand.
Yet, given his own belief that the matters were so grave, so consequential to the interests of TT, and given his own assertion that the media have been “chained up” in the past, it was incumbent on him to address the facts long before this week.
Instead, Dr Rowley, when contacted by our reporter, gave the usual runaround: taking the time to say, “Please speak to the minister who signed the agreements.” Calls and messages to that minister went unanswered.
We need not a tutorial to understand this: while the arrangements renewed are long-standing, the context in which they exist has dramatically changed.
Donald Trump has won the US presidential election.
Venezuela has held an illegitimate and undemocratic election.
Nicolás Maduro has threatened to annex a piece of Guyana. Russia, a country that continues to deploy forces against Ukraine, supports him.
The PM believes TT’s position should have been clear.
But the world has transformed since he stepped into Whitehall and since the days of Eric Williams. The ideal of peace is more fragile than ever.
We hope the suggestion that this country will not be a US base will never have to be tested.
But to pressure the media into censoring reporting to appease others – at home or abroad – is to cede our rights without a single soldier being deployed.
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