By Max Sterling

I am delighted to be back and to hear all your positive comments about my return. I am sure the guilty, shameless cartel members of the NNP must be annoyed. I am very much committed to always finding ways to chip away at their very souls with hard hitting commentary as I am known for.

 Many people are talking about Eddie Frederick's public response last Sunday where he delivered a serious rebuttal to Keith Mitchell's appearance on Josephine McGuire's "To-the-Point" programme on GBN Radio somewhere during the middle of last week.

It would appear that the time slot for Eddie Frederick's programme has been changed from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on Sundays on Spice Capital Radio (90.1 FM). I was able to capture the entire thing and transcribed it for your benefit.
 
"The current holder of the office of Prime Minister seems to have a fixation on lawyers who are associated with the NDC stating that they are the ones campaigning for the release of Bernard Coard and company, and they should be blamed if they are released, since the government has done everything in its power in the people's interest.

(a)     As the Prime Minister tried to indicate, Grenada is a country of laws, and under the laws if people we don't like or even think are guilty of the worst crime, they deserve and have to get lawyers to fight whatever case they see fit.

(We cannot always be talking about law and order, and who love this country and who don't, and yet still throw scorn on both the institutions and processes).

You and I know that if Grenada were truly a country of laws all thieves would have been arrested, charged and brought to justice and a lot of vagrant-like elements would not have even been qualified to run in a race to the outhouse far less to ever hope to assume political leadership of our country.   
  
(b) It is totally false for Mitchell to say lawyers who are members of the NDC have fought the case. No lawyer who is a member of NDC or closely associated to the NDC has worked on the case.

But even so, if they so choose in their capacities as lawyers, not representing the party in anyway, it would have been their right, and would have served the cause of justice - something Mitchell loves to portray himself as having respect for which he has shown time and time again he does not. Look at how he and Elvin Nimrod have seen to it that Magistrate Henry Paryag is treated.
 
(c)  There are lawyers, who like most Grenadians, are now very much sympathetic to the cause of the NDC fighting down this corrupt government, who have worked on the case - and that, too is their right.

In the same way, we won't hold it against this government that one of the lawyers used to be the Prime Minister's chief adviser. It is his right to take whatever case he sees fit.  The Prime Minister himself said that the man helped to negotiate the oil and gas agreement with Jack Grynberg.
 
(d)    Like the three former soldiers recently freed from Prison according to the true course of justice, Bernard Coard and the others may, or may not be freed by an act of the court. That is something we all have to respect, whether we like the ruling or not.

While the PM will try to make political fodder in his usual dishonest way from it, the following however must be noted: Of the 17 charged for the 1983 killings, only one has been freed by political action at the hands of Mitchell and his NNP.

PHYLLIS COARD WAS VIRTUALLY FREED BY THE GOVERNOR-GENERAL, AND THE PRIME MINISTER AND HIS GOVERNMENT. Whoever else have been freed, or will be freed, will be done through an act of the court which no one has control over.

It was the scare of Mitchell that Coard and company may have fled Grenada in the chaos of hurricane Ivan when the Richmond Hill Prison was badly damaged. In an interview with the Barbados Advocate, Bernard Coard, himself, refused to seek freedom in that way and was instrumental in convincing most of the prisoners to return to the Prison.

He mentioned wanting to exhaust the course of justice available to him and his colleagues and not taking advantage of any situation of chaos or favour from any authorities to free themselves.   
 
(e). While freeing someone on humanitarian grounds is not unprecedented, as the government has claimed in the case of Phyllis Coard, what leaves a bitter taste in our mouths is the lie they told in doing the act - in keeping with their impeccable record of deceitfulness and contempt for the people.

Remember they said, she will be out for six months, and then a further six month extension was granted. It's been several six months now - in fact years!  We have heard former Opposition Leader - Mike Baptiste - make this point on several occasions.

 Phyllis Coard has never returned and the government have never told us anything again - although Mitchell is on radio telling the nation with his forked tongue that his "government has done everything in its power in the people's interest".
  
(f). The NNP regime needs to say whether the freedom of Phyllis Coard, which the Mitchell regime granted, was part of a money deal worked out with close relatives?

Or whether it was part of the deal worked out by agents of Coard and comrades for the support of the NNP in the 1995 election. How does that tie in with the very public statement the convicts had issued in 1995 asking Grenadians to vote for Mitchell and NNP.
  
(g). The NNP government needs to say if they had not promised to free three others, but were stopped only when there was a public outcry. (We will remember the press reports that three others were weeks away from being freed by Mitchell's NNP in the name of reconciliation a few years ago, when members of his own camp protested).

Maybe the former PRA Major and Chief of Staff currently in Mitchell's administration could speak to his total opposition to the plan when he got the news.

(h). The Prime Minister needs to explain his statement (in the last budget debate) that some of the men on the hill might be innocent, because they might have just been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Does he really believe that? If he does - was that the reason he was planning to free three of them years ago? We heard him say that the NDC of today is definitely not the NDC of  Nicholas Brathwaite and George Brizan. I could not agree with him more as the NDC then produced individuals who can be seen in close proximity with him today even on boards and in delicate parliamentary positions.

 I am sure you would not see anyone in the NDC of today compromising themselves in that way. So he is right, the NDC back then and the NDC now are totally different.

But you see what Mitchell is trying to do is appeal to the original NDC, in an attempt to get them to abandon the party. The limited few who lack character and integrity have already gone with him and there is no more to come.

All of a sudden, Nicholas Brathwaite and George Brizan are great men in his sight, because of course having retired from politics, he doesn't see them as threat to his power anymore.    Keith Mitchell is the same man who used to ridicule George Brizan and Sir Nicholas Brathwaite - calling one Monkey Man and the other as the "Ah Doh Know" man! Oh ye of short memory!

I am certain that Sir Nicholas Brathwaite must be upset to hear Keith Mitchell now attempting to refer to him in such positive light knowing fully well that whoever Mitchell speaks positive of could never be good. Sir Nick, take courage - we know you are the exception to that rule. How dare he put you in the same category with all the Kozenys, Van Brinks, et al - of whom Mitchell is known to speak highly - even though the evidence was there to show them as scum bags?

The NDC of today have the same values as the NDC of yesterday -- the only difference is that the party now seems to have a younger, and more talented and resolute team that is prepared to stand up to the corruption of this NNP government.

The NDC of today must be different from the one of yesterday because of the new blood it is able to attract in exchange for all the dead weights -- like Kenny Lalsingh (the only man to have been fired twice from government) thus making him unconditionally available to Keith Mitchell by virtue of his qualifications.

 The NDC of today is under the same vile attacks of Keith Mitchell who accused members of the George Brizan-led  NDC of planting drugs in his house.... which was never proven to be true. The NDC of yesterday was a credible government, handling the people's affairs with decency. The NDC of today face a different challenge. It is the opposition party having to stand up to the most corrupt government in history.

Keith Mitchell now says that the attacks on him about briefcase and so on, is an attack on the Prime Ministership. Demanding accountability and honesty in government is not an attack on the institution. In fact, it is a fight to save it from his characterlessness and lack of integrity.

Nobody compromised the office of the prime minister except Keith Mitchell, himself. It was he who publicly admitted to going to an international fraudster's home in St. Moritz, Switzerland -- and at best -- if we can buy his own story -- accepted approximately 15-thousand dollars in cash for some so-called legitimate expenses, for which he still can't yet show one receipt.    

If Mitchell likes the country and wants to protect the office as he claims, he should vacate the chair, because it is he who has brought it into disrepute."

 I join Dr. Fletcher in saying: "All in the fullness of time!"

Opinions expressed are those of the author