THE EDITOR:
WHO was responsible for this lie….was it THE VOICE or was it the former Prime Minister himself?
In your issue of Tuesday January 31, your front page story refers to Dr.Kenny Anthony as saying that when he became Prime Minister in 1997 he had a discussion with the outgoing Prime Minister Sir John Compton. He also was quoted as saying certain things Sir John told him, and he used the reference to indicate the importance of one Prime Minister showing respect for another.
I was mystified reading this for the simple reason that it is a bold faced lie. Everyone knows that Sir John Compton was not the outgoing Prime Minister in 1997. It was Dr. Vaughan Lewis, Sir John having retired the previous year. How then could Dr. Anthony have met Sir Compton, at Sir John’s request, as he claimed? How could he have had such a conversation with Dr. Anthony as Dr. Anthony described while addressing last Sunday’s meeting of his party in Vieux Fort?
Dr. Anthony also appears annoyed that Mr. Allen Chastanet did not confer with him on the Desert Star Project but are we real here? Dr. Anthony and his party totally hounded Chastanet and his party in the run up to the last elections. He even labeled the election as a war between the Chastanets and Labour. Would Allen Chastanet, in the circumstances, be expected to approach Kenny Anthony on anything after that? What kind of reaction would Chastanet have got? Verbal abuse, maybe. Ignored completely? What?
Further, how could Dr. Anthony have had such a cordial discussion with Sir John in 1997 and then his party proceed to attempt to humiliate him as it did once it got into power. Do we forget the hauling of Sir John before a Commission of Inquiry over the building of a road on Vieux Fort that cost, I think, $30,000? Do we forget the harassment of Sir John who was even denied a parking spot on the William Peter Boulevard where his office was located? Do we forget denying him an invitation to the opening of the Millennium Highway, a project which he, Sir John had initiated?
If Dr. Anthony always had a credibility problem, he has a bigger one now by relating this piece of history that never was.
But why is it that every time the Labour Party and its leadership are looking for a crutch, they have to invoke the name of Sir John. The man has been dead for nearly 10 years, should we not let him rest in peace?
Stanislaus P. Henry