“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing this morning from the member for Castries Southeast. He’s a seasoned parliamentarian of great dexterity, shall we say.” Whatever spin Kenny Anthony may have attempted to put on the word at last Tuesday’s House session when he referenced the Castries Southeast MP, the fact is that “dexterity” is properly defined as “mental skill: adroitness”—oodles of which Guy Joseph served up during an interview with the STAR earlier this week. No surprise that it started with his comments on the widely discussed Al Jazeera documentary, entitled “Diplomats for Sale.” (Shortly after it appeared on the Internet a government minister commented to me, in hushed tones: “If that documentary had been about Guy Joseph can you image what the other side would be saying? The answers they’d be demanding of him? The calls he’d get from the local media?”)
For Joseph himself, “The documentary dealt mainly with the sale of diplomatic passports and I must say what it uncovered was quite shocking. Saint Lucia is highlighted, and I formed the impression the documentary was inspired by what happened in Saint Lucia in 2015. But I hope it is seen as the clandestine actions of only a few officials.”
He went on: “People should not confuse the CBI programme with the under the table sale of diplomatic passports. The issue of diplomatic passports is exclusively a government function; the CBI is not. That is why I am saying that what we all saw in the Al Jazeera documentary should not be permitted or condoned. Here’s a gentleman who at best was assisted in acquiring a diplomatic passport on the basis he was Saint Lucia’s permanent representative at the IMO but who never attended a single meeting of the organization in two years. I call on the then prime minister Kenny Anthony, Philip J. Pierre, as his deputy prime minister, Alva Baptiste as foreign affairs minister, and the former high commissioner and now MP Ernest Hilaire to furnish details of the so-called Juffali Affair. By all they said when in office, Walid Juffali so loved Saint Lucians he never met that he undertook to give their country a research centre for diabetes. All for free. Well, where is it? What happened to it? If Juffali was given a diplomatic passport on the basis of promises made to Saint Lucia, then let’s hear the story from those who know it best. Let’s not forget the damage this whole thing did to Saint Lucia worldwide. We were made to appear in collusion with Juffali’s widely criticized attempt to deny his wife justice in the UK courts.”
Naturally, that’s not how the opposition SLP sees the matter. This week the party issued the following statement: “The UWP is fully aware that Hon. Ernest Hilaire does not appoint ambassadors or issue diplomatic passports. To create the impression that Dr Hilaire did is malicious, defamatory and libelous. To further suggest that he may have been paid for doing something that he had no power to do is aggravating the accusation.” The release did not say whether Hilaire had in any way influenced the government’s decisions relative to the Saudi billionaire.
Speaking of aggravating one particular accusation, Ernest Hilaire was last seen on the Dominican prime minister Roosevelt Skerrit’s campaign platform, passionately warning Skerrit supporters to “be careful of the United Workers Party. Very careful of them. Do not fall for their tricks. And I’ll tell you something: you see all that’s happening in Dominica, that’s well planned. And it was planned in Saint Lucia. It was planned in Saint Lucia to happen in Dominica!”
A spokesperson for Saint Lucia’s United Workers Party has called on the authorities both here and in Dominica to question Hilaire on his shocking statement. Hilaire also revealed to voters in Dominica what presumably they did not already know, and which flew in the face of the Al Jazeera report: “Let me tell you something. You see your prime minister, you have a great man in Roosevelt Skerrit. You have a great man in Roosevelt Skerrit. The first time I met Roosevelt Skerrit we were far away in the Solomon Islands. From the first time I met him I knew he was going to be a great leader. I knew that!”
He did not refer to the counter assessment by Al Jazeera: “Undercover filming reveals how former Dominican Prime Minister Oliver Seraphin offered to broker a secret deal to hand out an ambassadorship in Asia for fees totalling $470,000. The revelation comes days ahead of a general election in Dominica on December 6, in which Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit is up for re-election. Al Jazeera’s investigation also reveals Skerrit allegedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars for his 2014 election campaign from an Iranian businessman named Alireza Monfared in exchange for an ambassadorship for Dominica to Malaysia. Besides money, Monfared also allegedly provided Skerrit with T-shirts and other paraphernalia for his 2014 campaign.”
Nevertheless, by Hilaire’s yardstick, the Dominican prime minister was a great man who deserved to be the island’s prime minister indefinitely. No surprise that with the Juffali matter resurrected, some see Hilaire as desperate to help a fellow maligned friend.
Hilaire did not attend last Tuesday’s House sitting. Had he been present, Kenny Anthony’s “parliamentarian of great dexterity” might have addressed him on his role in the Juffali affair. “I would have loved to hear what he had to say about how Juffali was first introduced to the government of Saint Lucia and what happened to the promises he made in relation to his diplomatic immunity at a time when he faced the possibility of paying out a record divorce settlement to his divorced wife.”
On a more personal note Joseph added: “I know the opposition has been trying for years to nail me to corrupt practises. They’ve tried everything they possibly can, legal and illegal, to try and get me. Now they’re saying I’ve never been the subject of an official investigation, but Saint Lucians have lost count of the number of allegations the opposition has leveled against me. There is hard evidence that when they were in government they paid out millions to an American investigator to dig up dirt on me.”
Guy Joseph recalled that recently, when the prime minister hinted in parliament about an investigation into the Grynberg controversy, “only because the former prime minister has stubbornly refused to volunteer related information,” Kenny Anthony stood up in the House and threatened: ‘If you carry out that investigation I promise to see to it that you reap the whirlwind.’ Then, there was that there will be no peace threat by Anthony in relation to planned work on St. Jude Hospital by the current administration.
“The corrupt practices of the Labour Party couldn’t be more evident,” said Joseph finally. “I wish Saint Lucians a happy holiday season but come January I’ll be coming out with all guns blazing as I expose the corruption for all to see, detail upon detail. They’ve had their time making wild allegations they cannot prove.
Presumably, the MP referred to blazing metaphorical guns.
