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Dear Editor:
There is something deeply offensive about the United Progressive Party’s sudden discovery of “political persecution.”
It insults the intelligence of the Antiguan and Barbudan people and tramples on recent history that is neither forgotten nor forgiven.
The UPP is not a victim of state power. It is the original abuser of it.
Between 2004 and 2014, the UPP turned governance into a ten-year vendetta against former Antigua Labour Party ministers and supporters. The objective was never justice.
It was humiliation, intimidation, and political extermination. State institutions were bent to serve party revenge, and anyone associated with the ALP was treated as a criminal-in-waiting.
The UPP hired a foreign forensic investigator, not because local institutions had failed, but because the optics of foreign “experts” were useful for poisoning public opinion.
This was theatre, not law enforcement.
It was designed to convince the population that guilt already existed and that convictions were inevitable. None ever came.
Criminal charges were filed against Cutie Benjamin and Tanny Rose, trumpeted loudly in the media, waved like trophies at political rallies, and used to scare voters into submission.
Multiple civil lawsuits were launched against former ministers, including Gaston Browne, in an orchestrated legal blitz meant to bankrupt, silence, and politically destroy opponents.
And after years of noise, millions in legal costs, and reputations dragged through the mud, every single case collapsed. Not some. All. Dismissed. Thrown out. Laughed out of court.
The UPP could not prove a single allegation.
Not one conviction. Not one finding of wrongdoing. Not one shred of credible evidence.
Yet the damage was already done, and that was always the plan.
The most disgraceful chapter came during the 2009 general election, when the then Prime Minister publicly named former ministers and threatened to jail them.
This was not dog-whistle politics; it was mob politics.
It was a Prime Minister standing on a platform and promising imprisonment without trial. Parliamentary democracy was reduced to a threat letter.
Inside Parliament, UPP members openly threatened to hound former ALP ministers, boasting of endless investigations and permanent harassment. The presumption of innocence was mocked.
Due process was treated as an inconvenience. The message was clear: “We will chase you forever, whether you are guilty or not.”
Fast forward to today, and the UPP has learned nothing.
It continues its lazy, reckless habit of accusing without proving, flinging constant and wholly unsupported claims of theft and corruption against current ministers. Allegation has become policy.
Evidence is optional. Courts are irrelevant—unless, of course, the UPP itself is involved.
Now, faced with police questioning, the same party that spent a decade criminalising its opponents suddenly demands restraint, fairness, and respect for the rule of law. This is not irony; it is audacity of the highest order.
The UPP cannot rewrite history. It cannot pretend to be a defender of civil liberties after spending ten years trampling them. It cannot cry persecution after perfecting the politics of persecution.
And it certainly cannot lecture anyone on justice after every single case it brought collapsed under judicial scrutiny.
The country remembers who abused power, who threatened jail without trial, who hounded political opponents, and who left office with nothing to show but dismissed cases and shredded reputations.
The UPP is not being persecuted.
It is being confronted by its own record.
Charkie
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The writer is a delusional clown…. society knows the history of ALP… anyone who speaks up against ALP especially if you have a business, they will ensure your business fail!!
This is such bullshit, Charkie needs to put some more chalk in his mouth. I remember how ALP railroaded Walter’s into prison until the Privvy Council overturned the injustice. Inustice started under ALP. I am well past 60 years and the biggest curse on Antigua and Barbuda is the Antigua Labour Party. Antigua will never truly prosper until this present leadership is no more and the riches you all have acquired will blow away like smoke in the wind. Only the word of God lasts forever. Time will be the final arbiter
@ Smh: The writer just might be the country’s P.M. (L.o.l.).
Look like his writing style to me.
UPP are just a bunch of cry cry babies. Still cannot come to us the people with anything solid. Bunch a wastes they are. At this point, it’s not about colour, but who can take us forward, and UPP is not it.
If those that are responsible for the destruction of those APUA pipes as we call ourselves a christian nation and be so hypocritical that God knows in our hearts who has done it and remain silent by denying says so much of the society we live in and our children who we ougt to set good christian examples are deceived by our actions but God see and knows every thing drones are always in those areas and it would take some times money looses the tonge and everything takes time
Writer please give me your opinion on this one.
A foreigner responded in 2008 to a radio add for work which was temporary ongoing, the foreigner upon commencing work at interval when work is available showed the employer a letter of deportation address to them from the hon. Lester bird the late prime minister in 2003, the upp became the government in 2004, there was a citizenship program by the UPP, the foreigner ask if I could help them regularize their status even though the work was occasional due to circumstances, I complied, then that was a 4 months period and the temporary job was terminated including myself, circumstances had to do with tool equipment, so I was out of work for a year and few months before purchasing a next equipment costing me in purchase and customs and shipping nearly two hundred thousands, the same temporary worker came back in a boisterous manner asking how come they are not working, at that time the UPP had a political mandate to settle all labor dispute even hiring new adjudicator to the labor and industrial court, the union associated with UPP was the Antigua workers union, the said worker went to that union and the employer received a boisterous acrymonious call that was so confrontational for the brief seconds decided to terminate the call, that’s not all the AWU rep sounded arrogant on the other end of the phone because the government at the time represented the union, so without proper empirical data or investigation they foisted it into the political mandate of the labor department and executed judgement in the union favor, then the government change back to ALP and that same foreigner who now sports Antigua and Barbuda passport and the millennial act granted by the UPP is given audience at the prime minister office been assisted by the chief of staff max Hurst who then call making threats using the title ” office of the prime minister” he then some how used the legal aid department to take the matter to the magistrate court, it was dismissed in my favor, but still at different time over 15 years that person would get their policemen friends to call and intimidate me that if I had not known the law or constitution I would just comply with their attempted extortion, I would say that both political party need to let the civil servants do their work, because this person had found favor with UPP as a voter for the 2009 elections and also with the ALP for the 2014 election, Antigua is the onliest country where the labor department and immigration work against the citizens, it doesn’t matter what complains you make as Antiguan citizens you are not listened to, but when the foreigners go their it’s action. This will never obtain in the virgin islands, because even on the day I helped regularize that person they would have had to fly out and come in on my bond until the citizenship by upp was processed. Then it continue in my absence that the industrial court is supporting this claim in my absence, how can I get the system to listen and be fear? So both party use the law heavy handed when in power.
@ hurst… u are probably right lol….
Dear Charkie,
You are totally entitled to your one-sided opinion in regards to the UPP. But reading your letter, you cannot deny the blatant interference by the Maria Bird-Browne led DCA and her Prime Ministerial husband Gaston Browne.
Surely you can see that?
And also, instead of the Prime Minister allowing the police to do their job impartially, Gaston Browne leans on the new Police Commissioner Everton Jeffers to arrest a political opponent.
That is not democratic by any stretch of your or my imagination.
I tried looking back at any of your former comments to see if I could find anything of you mentioning about our Prime Minister’s lack of transparency in financial matters; the missing $1million dollars Hurricane Irma donation; the Africans that were smuggled into the country and have miraculously gone missing???
Need I go on Charkie? But I’m sure you get my drift.
Gaston Browne has been given a “free pass” on criticism from within the party and his supporters, but people like you will continue to demonise the UPP, when we actually have a demon running Antigua & Barbuda 🇦🇬
However Charkie, as I mentioned at the beginning, you are entitled – in a democratic country – to your one-sided and myopic opinion.
Regards
Brixtonian