Clint Chan Tack Saturday, January 31 2004

THE CANADIAN and United States Governments yesterday dismissed Opposition UNC allegations that Trinidadians were applying in droves for refugee status in their respective countries.

The allegations were made by Chaguanas MP in a 17-page article in a Canadian newspaper, the Ottawa Citizen, entitled “TT’s Kingmaker: Gauging the threat: How Jamaat is viewed in Trinidad.” Two of Ramsaran’s allegations in that article were that 3,000 people requested refuge in Canada and thousands of Indo-Trinidadians have signed petitions asking the US, Canadian and British embassies to grant them sanctuary based on racially-targetted kidnappings in Trinidad and Tobago.

Canadian High Commissioner to TT, Simon Wade, told Newsday: “Absolutely no formal requests (for refugee status) have been made over the last month and certainly not 3,000. I have not seen any petition.” Wade said while Canada also subscribes to freedom of the press, the contents of the Ottawa Citizen article “do not represent the views of the Government of Canada.” Senior officials at the US Embassy in Port-of-Spain supported Wade’s statements. “We have not contributed in any way to these articles and we have no further comment,” they stated. Yesterday’s security intelligence reports from the US Department of State, US Department of Homeland Security, Central Intelligence Agency and the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office indicate there is no terrorist presence in TT at this time nor does this country pose a security threat to its nationals or any Western interests in the region.