[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hat would a Labour party press briefing be without nonstop servings of the V-word: vindictive, vicious? Wednesday’s conference at party headquarters was true to form, with the party leader Mr Phillip J Pierre and the MP for Castries South, Mr Ernest Hilaire addressing aspects of last week’s House sitting.
“I just want to tell you that as leader of the party I have full confidence in Dr. Hilaire,” Pierre said at the outset. “I have full confidence in his work as the parliamentay representative for Castries South and in his work as High Commissioner to Saint Lucia in London. And I believe that what is happening is a political witch hunt which is not new to him . . . At some point the truth will be in the forefront.”
By “witch hunt” Pierre referred to the prime minister’s suggestion at the last House sitting, that Hilaire had requested a postponement of a matter involving both men and related to the ownership of a luxury vehicle currently in Mr. Hilaire’s possession.
“I heard the prime minister in the house,” said Hilaire on Wednesday. “The prime minister lies about simple things. He said the case has been postponed three times on my request, which is not true, and this can easily be proven to be untrue.”
He proffered the possible reasons for the prime minister’s allegations: “An attempt to discredit, embarrass me; an attempt to shut me up. Maybe because my mouth is the biggest and I criticize the most and I ask the most questions. The prime minister has to find a way to go after me; to destroy me. It’s very clear there are persons in his Cabinet . . . he has to address whether or not they are being investigated, for true . . . if you have a Cabinet with at least three ministers with question marks about them, what do you do now? You try to flip the switch. So now, Hilaire is under investigation.” He said the prime minister was also trying to deflect from the criticism levelled at the budget that was delivered.
As for the Juffali matter: “All I’m telling you is that I am waiting for my day in court and I am certainly sure my lawyers are waiting for the prime minister to sit on that witness stand; and I want to encourage him to keep talking about the Jufalli matter; keep talking about it.” (See Juffali article on page 8.)
Additiionally: “If anybody believes the vehicle I have is theirs or the govenrment’s own, come and take it. Come and take it! And when they come to take it, I will gladly give them the vehicle, no fuss, no fight. But it’s what will happen after. It’s very simple to prove ownership; it just shows you how malicious and vindictive the government is. Because if a government believes that a vehicle is theirs or it belongs to somebody in government, all you have to do is to just show proof that it’s yours.”
When one reporter asked if there might be a connection between the recent fires and the Saint Lucia Labour Party, Mr Pierre said: “We as a party, the party that I’m leader of, will never reach that stage. We don’t think it’s worth it, to divide the country like that. But we will continue to be strident; we will continue to defend our position and we will continue to tell the people of Saint Lucia what is wrong within this country, based on facts.”
For his part, Hilaire suggested there should be no speculations about the origins of the fires and that the citizenry should wait for related announcements from the local fire and police departments.
—Keryn Nelson
