Editorial | Clarity still needed on Rowley incident

Since the Antigua and Barbuda Government has confirmed that Keith Rowley is no fantasist with respect to his claim of being delayed at Antigua’s VC Bird Airport because he was on a watch list of the international police organisation, Interpol, both St John’s and Port of Spain now have to dig deep to get to the bottom of how, and why, Dr Rowley was flagged.

This is important given who Dr Rowley is, and the potential regional and international repercussions of this matter, not least of which is the divisive political quarrel it has ignited in Trinidad and Tobago.

In the meantime, the Antigua and Barbuda Government also has to provide assurances that former leaders, who leave office in good standing, can expect to be treated with the dignity deserved by people who hold, or have held, high office.

In other words, Antigua and Barbuda has to ensure that there was no perversion of international processes and systems, and that its national territory wasn’t deliberately misused. For, if Dr Rowley was set up, who else might be?

In Dr Rowley’s telling, he was flagged twice, while in transit in Antigua on his way to, and from a symposium to mark the 25th anniversary of the eruption of Soufrière Hills volcano on nearby Montserrat. Dr Rowley has a PhD in geology.

On the second occasion, a week after he was first stopped, an Antiguan immigration official suggested, according to Dr Rowley, that his appearance on the Interpol watch list might have been a case of mistaken identity. Not only did he share the same name with the person he might have been mistaken for, but also the same date of birth.

MISTAKEN IDENTITY EXPLANATION

Mistakes can happen. But Dr Rowley doesn’t feel it is the case on this occasion . He assumed that the female immigration official used the mistaken identity explanation as an attempt to save him embarrassment.

In other words, Dr Rowley, who stepped down as prime minister in March – six weeks before his People’s National Movement (PNM) lost the government – believes that his appearance on an Interpol watch list was orchestrated by political opponents.

The new prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has rejected that claim, while the country’s police chief, Allister Guevarro, said that checks by the Trinidad and Tobago Police Services (TTPS) showed that Dr Rowley’s name doesn’t appear on any Interpol list.

Said Mr Guevarro, “Comprehensive checks were conducted across Interpol’s secure databases which yielded a definitive result: Dr Rowley is not listed on any Interpol watch list or international notice. No alerts, flags, or warrants are associated with his name in Interpol’s systems.

“Moreover, the TTPS confirms that it has not submitted, nor caused to be submitted, any information to Interpol that would justify such a listing. There is no record, directive, or procedural action from any department within the TTPS that supports the allegation of local involvement in the matter.”

However, prior to Mr Guevarro’s retort, the former prime minister had told journalists in Port of Spain that his checks with contacts (he did not reveal who) in the Caribbean had confirmed that his name was indeed on an Interpol watch list.

RESPECT FOR THE LAW, EQUALITY

We didn’t expect that Dr Rowley would have fabricated the Antigua incident to seek to create public mischief or to maliciously implicate the Persad-Bissessar government. And the Antigua and Barbuda government has confirmed he didn’t.

“As far as I am aware, Dr Rowley has not misstated anything,” Steadroy Benjamin, Antigua and Barbuda’s attorney general and public safety minister, told the Trinidadian newspaper, Newsday.

It might be just a strange coincidence that someone with whom Dr Rowley shares the same name and the same birth date and year just happened to be on an Interpol watch list.

Or, as an outside possibility, was there mischief-making in St John’s?

Or was there something else amiss.

Antigua and Barbuda’s prime minister, Gaston Browne, recently a prime ministerial colleague of Dr Rowley and who will now have to sit in councils with Ms Persad-Bissessar, should cause these matters to be clarified, at least from his country’s perspective.

And whatever might be her view on how Dr Rowley handled the incident, Ms Persad-Bissessar, as a responsible head of government, has an obligation to get to the bottom of the matter, and be certain that the country’s security apparatus did nothing that was outside the law with respect to Dr Rowley.

In liberal democracies, leadership is not forever. But an infinite aspect of liberal democracy is respect for the law and equality thereunder for all citizens.