UDP says victimisation at root of riot

With two juicy political issues in the form of a violent protest in Orange Walk and a less than glowing report from the I.M.F., the Opposition United Democratic Party would not be doing its job if it didn’t try to capitalise on those events. At a press conference this morning, the top brass of the UDP took aim at the government with both barrels, but despite the tempting targets, the attack was relatively restrained. Party Leader Dean Barrow summed up the UDP position on the riot at Tower Hill.

Dean Barrow, Leader of the Opposition

“We sympathise with the security forces who were obviously put under great pressure by the protestors. But we sympathise even more with the protestors, who were there in defence of their rights, as they saw it. And who were there, I think, as the culmination of a process that has seen people in this country become more and more fed up with the victimisation of the current administration. It is clear that the security forces were very much ill prepared. It is clear the entire situation was mishandled. But what we don’t want to lose sight of, is the fact that it is the government that is squarely to blame for what took place, because the whole thing was caused as a consequence of the victimisation that the Ministry of Transport was proposing to practice against Me’ssrs Tillett and Castillo.”