In the face of a threatened vote of "no confidence" in her leadership, Editor of the Grenada Informer newspaper, Carla Briggs has resigned from the Media Workers Association of Grenada (MWAG).

Briggs has circulated a letter to local editors and members of the diplomatic community among others in which she announced her decision to abandon the association.

The move comes less than two weeks after members of MWAG attempted to use the organisation's Extra-ordinary General Meeting to introduce a motion of "No confidence" against Briggs' leadership.

She was under pressure from members for remaining silent in the current stand-off between the local media and the ruling New National Party (NNP) government of Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell on the issue of press freedom in the country.

Following is the full text of Briggs' resignation letter:

June 14th, 2004

The Executive and Members
Media Workers Association of Grenada
Saint George's

Colleagues,

I have given much thought to what has been happeningin the media, and especially in the Media WorkersAssociation of Grenada, since the press release was sent out by Director of Information, Selwyn Noel, concerning the publication of the article about the Prime Minister in the Offshore Alert newsletter.

According to the Constitution of the Media Workers Association, Section 1, "The Association is dedicated to the best interest of the media in Grenada, particularly for the furtherance of the education and professional status of its members".

Of the over sixty months I have been involved in the Association, this past one has been the worst. Never before have I seen such blatant disregard for and lack of the professionalism with which we are supposed to perform our duties.

Perhaps I should express regret that I felt the need twice to vacate the chair during our General Meeting on Saturday 5th June. But I felt I had no choice since I was not being allowed to control the meeting in an orderly manner, with people speaking to the meeting while sitting and jumping up whenever they liked.

One executive member even insulted one of our guests by ordering him to sit down so that she could speak. In addition, accusations were being made against me, as well as criticisms about my alleged silence on the issues since my return from Taiwan and Dominica.

In this situation I did not feel like either President or Chairperson and felt it best to leave. I will not go into all the details of all that happened between my return and the General Meeting as you know all about it.
I would only like to point out that after being away for three weeks, my first obligation was to the company for which I work and when I called a meeting of the Executive, as part of my effort to understand what was going on, it was vetoed by the Assistant Secretary.

I was also very disturbed at the fact that my acceptance of a personal invitation to attend the course/workshop in Taiwan and my decision to attend myself the workshop in Dominica were queried. In addition, since May 31st, I have been denied access to MWAG's e-mail inbox. It was apparent to me that without authority the password was changed by an executive member.

After much thought and prayer on these and other matters, I have come to the decision that MWAG has become the kind of organisation that I would not like to be associated with.

It has given me great satisfaction that I was able to contribute my time and energy to the improvement and growth of the Media Workers Association of Grenada as 2nd Vice-President from 1999 to 2001, 1st Vice-President from 2001 to 2003 and President for the six month period between December 2003 to the present.

Now, with the difference in opinion as regards the importance of being responsible and accurate as it pertains to information emanating from MWAG, the recent incidents of criticism of my performance as President, the questioning of certain decisions I made and concerns of my bias based on my employment with Grenada Informer Newspaper, where I have worked for over seventeen and one half years, I choose to resign and I hereby tender my resignation.

I extend my gratitude to you all for giving me the opportunity to serve as your President and wish the general membership the very best for every success in the future.

I remain,

Yours sincerely

Carla-Rae