St Lucia: SLP blast PM’s ‘vindictive’ comments over UWI professor

The St Lucia Labour Party has said it views comments made by Prime Minister Allen Chastanet towards a UWI professor “with dismay but not surprise”.

His remarks are the latest “display of vindictive, punitive and authoritarian behaviour”, the party added.

Chastanet is reported to have responded to a lecture by Dr Tennyson Joseph by expressing surprise that he was still a professor at the University of the West Indies.

He also accused the academic of being racist in a number of articles.

WIC News understands the subject of the lecture, which was given to an audience in St Vincent, expressed an opinion that the prime minister was unhappy with.

Joseph spoke against what he identified as the rise of businessmen turning into politicians, using Allen Chastanet – as well as US President Donald Trump – as examples.

The SLP said that Chastanet’s response was “in effect” calling for the dismissal of Joseph.

“Is this not victimisation at its most vile and disgusting level, to attack and destroy ones livelihood?” the party said in a statement.

“What St Lucia sees emerging in Prime Minister Chastanet is an authoritarian and vindictive figure whose first instinct is to crush the livelihoods and destroy the reputations of persons who express critical views of his leadership and of his policy decisions.

“This trend is extremely disturbing and the examples and causalities keep mounting.”

[caption id="attachment_492" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Allen Chastanet.[/caption]

UWP: Professor in fantasy world

WIC News has reached out to the prime minister’s office for a comment but they have not replied

But Oswald Augustin, general secretary of the governing United Workers Party, wrote a strong response for the St Lucia Times.

In the article he describes Joseph as a “discredited politician” who continues “to dwell in a world of fantasy to their own creating without realising that the world has moved on.”

The head of the University of the West Indies Open Campus Saint Lucia, Dr Veronica Simon, believes that the university was designed to help students examine issues with a critical mind – and not just spoon-feed them views.

“A university is not a primary school. A university is a place of higher learning. It’s an environment of academic freedom,” she said.

“And when you have a tenured lecturer like Dr Joseph he has the academic freedom to express his informed opinions, his academically informed opinions, and that’s how all universities work.”

The SLP stands committed to a strong, viable and independent regional university, the SLP added.