By Newsday Staff Monday, October 22 2012

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Keith Rowley...

Opposition Leader and PNM political leader Dr Keith Rowley last evening urged Tobagonians to use the opportunity of the upcoming Tobago House of Assembly (THA) election to tell the People’s Partnership (PP) administration: “Enough is enough”.

Speaking at a PNM Tobago Council rally at Goodwood High School, in east Tobago, Rowley, at the same time, threw his political future on the line with the people of Tobago.

“I place my faith and my political future in the decency, the integrity, the high moral values of the people of Tobago; and that means victory for the PNM,” he declared. “We have ambition, but we know that ambition means that you get there by standards and virtues and values that will make your parents proud. Any other route, and we want no part of it,” Rowley stressed. The PNM leader asserted that once again Tobago was being called upon to “save” Trinidad and Tobago. He charged that the PP Government had breached the trust of the people.

“As I speak to you, the Government of Trinidad has lost the trust of the people of Trinidad and Tobago,” Rowley told the crowd. “This is what Ashworth Jack, (political leader of the Tobago Organisation of the People and THA Minority Leader) has latched Tobago onto,” he declared.

Earlier, THA Chief Secretary Orville London threw out a warning to Rowley, saying if he dared support Government’s legislation for internal self government in Tobago, Rowley could expect to be turned back at the airport by the PNM supporters of Tobago.

“The day he supports that foolish Green Paper in Parliament, all of us will be meeting him by the airport to turn him back,” London said, who was critical of the budgetary allocation given to Tobago, and reiterated that the Milshirv deal with the THA was best for the island.

He challenged Government to take the THA to court on the issue. According to London, one of the most dangerous things coming out of the budget presentation was Finance Minister Larry Howai’s announcement that the review of the THA Act will be coming to Parliament to be debated in the coming months.

London’s remark was in response to TOP leader Ashworth Jack warning to Rowley that if Rowley keeps his promise to not cooperate with Government in Parliament and does not support the bill to give Tobago internal self government, he did not know how Rowley, a Tobagonian, would be able to return home since Tobagonians have been clamouring for self-government for over 150 years.

“Let me tell Dr Rowley in front of all of us,” London said, “and I don’t need to tell him, the day he supports that foolish Green Paper in Parliament, all of us will be meeting him by the airport to turn him back.”

The THA Review Act, London said, has to go back to the drawing board. “That is where the story is,” he said.

Focusing on the theme of his presentation, preserving Tobago’s heritage, London said a loud and clear signal coming out of the international corporations, “is that this country’s energy is to the north east of Tobago. This country’s energy is in Tobago’s waters.”

“Therefore,” he said, “we in Tobago got to understand the difference between ten miles and 200 miles. Ten miles mean Tobago is beggar, and 200 miles mean Tobago is the senior partner in the relationship between Tobago and Trinidad. That is the reality.”