Top party members: Yes, Jack has Kamla file
Ria Taitt Political Editor
Wednesday, January 20th 2010
Is there really a Jack Warner file on Kamla Persad-Bissessar?
No, says Chaguanas MP Jack Warner, who is supporting Persad-Bissessar’s candidacy for the post of UNC Political Leader.
However, several persons-including UNC vice chairman and St Augustine MP, Vasant Bharath, CEO and Caroni East MP Dr Tim Gopeesingh and Tabaquite MP Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj- yesterday stated that Warner came to a meeting of the UNC Executive on March 11, 2009 and produced a file, the contents of which he attempted to reveal.
Bharath said Jack presented the file and placed it on the board room table. ’He threatened to open the file, and I stopped him (from opening it),’ said Bharath, who chaired the meeting. (UNC leader Basdeo Panday was not present and was due to return from Scotland on that very day).
’He (Warner) held the file. It was a thick file, about 1 1/2 inches thick,’ Bharath said.
Gopeesingh also confirmed that Warner brought the file to the Executive meeting. ’I remember the incident. It did happen,’ he said .
Said Maharaj: ’He walked with the file to the National Executive, he attacked Kamla and offered to show the file to the members of the Executive and nobody wanted to touch the file because of what he was saying about the file. It was very derogatory.’
An Express story carried on March 12, 2009 on this Executive meeting quoted Warner, in an interview after the meeting, as saying: ’I had come to this meeting to go after Kamla’ and that he had come ’with a ton-load of stuff from since she was born to yesterday’. He however ended by saying that Kamla was a mother, a sister and a daughter.
Persad-Bissessar, who was also interviewed, had stated: ’Mr Warner had said he will deal with me and Mr Warner came to the meeting and did deal with me and indicated he had nothing to say.’
The Executive meeting had taken place three days after Persad-Bissessar attacked Warner and Maharaj in her feature address to the UNC Women’s Arm, referring to them as ’the destructive element ... inspiring clamours for change’.
Maharaj also reiterated yesterday (and in statements made in an interview with the Sunday Express) that at the meeting in Penal, Warner had the file and showed it to him. Warner at a meeting in Cedros on Sunday night described this as a ’blatant lie’.
Chairman of that meeting, Rampersad Sieuraj, yesterday told the Express that Warner ’ had spoken of the file even before the Siparia meeting and also talked about it at a social gathering at his home right after that meeting. Sieuraj said Warner on the platform stated that ’Kamla was not fit to hold office and made mention of the file. After that, we had a gathering at my home and I distinctly remember Jack talking about a file ... and he also told us of the contents of the file... In my garage, he sat down and talked this things... And he threatened to bring the file and Ramesh indicated to him, ’no, don’t do that’.’
Said Sieuraj: ’I wanted to call Jack Warner this morning and tell him that he did say he had a file at my home. I was there.’ Asked what Warner alleged was in the file, Sieuraj said: ’It is not the sort of things that we want to discuss, it is not things that our womenfolk would need to hear’
’Furthermore, one of the persons on his team, Sylvester Ramquar, sat down with me and others at a home in Chaguanas and told us of some of the contents of the file. And if Sylvester Ramquar disputes it, I could bring ten people who were there,’ Sieuraj stated, adding: ’The issue of the file was well established. He (Warner) just trying to deny it now because he is on Kamla’s platform. He want to play football with the people. But this is not a football game where you kick in one corner and then kick in the next.’
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