“There is a direct connection between Barbadians up here [New York] and Barbadians at home.”
Attorney General Adriel Brathwaite was directing his remarks to more than 120 Bajans who had assembled in the community centre of St Alban’s Episcopal Church in the Canarsie section of Brooklyn.
They were there to hear three visiting members of the ruling Democratic Labour Party (DLP) – George Pilgrim, general secretary; Senator Irene Sandiford-Garner, parliamentary secretary in the Ministry of Health; and Brathwaite – talk about the record of the Freundel Stuart administration.
“You are an important constituency and if we are serious about informing our people, we must inform you so that when you speak to your brothers and sisters, you can speak with the correct knowledge and be able to articulate our position as a party,” he said at a three-hour town hall meeting.
It was the second such session organized this year by the Government. The first was held several weeks ago in Washington, where the speaker was Prime Minister Stuart.
While that meeting had a national focus, the session in New York had a distinct partisan political agenda which Brathwaite, Pilgrim, Sandiford-Garner and Shirley Lashley, a key member of the Friends of Barbados DLP Association, didn’t conceal.
Indeed, Lashley, chairman of the meeting, pointed to the presence of supporters of the Barbados Labour Party (BLP) in the audience, including Anthony Wood, an economist and former Cabinet minister in the Owen Arthur administration.
After Brathwaite, who defeated Wood in the 2008 election for the St Philip South seat, had completed his initial presentation, he offered Wood the chance to ask the first question. However, Wood remained silent.
The Dems made it clear they were in New York to get the party’s message out to their New York constituency.
“The more you know about what’s happening at home in particular, the more you receive accurate information, the better you are to assist us as a party,” Brathwaite said. “That is what this is about . . . . It is about education.”
Just recently, the Opposition BLP and its New York branch, a Better Life For Our People, held a somewhat similar meeting in Brooklyn.
The day before the DLP?town hall meeting, the visiting delegation joined about 5 000 Bajans at the annual Barbados Fun Day which showcased Barbadian culture.
At St Alban’s Church centre, the visiting DLP members spoke about the lavish spending of the former Government led by Arthur, a situation they said left the current administration with an onerous financial burden.
There was also talk that Barbados should “find some way” to establish an indigenous bank to replace Trinidadian-owned Republic Bank.
Interestingly, when asked if Stuart had the full support of his Cabinet, if he was providing the country with the quality leadership it needed and if Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler had what it took to lead the country, Brathwaite declined to take sides.
However, he asserted that Sinckler was a “good” Minister of Finance and “our party has one leader at this point in time”, who was Stuart.
“Ask me whether or not Freundel Stuart receives my support tonight, the answer is yes. Ask me whether or not Freundel Stuart has the attributes to lead Barbados tonight, the answer is yes,” he added.
