Tuesday, July 28th, 2009: St George’s, Grenada: Many Grenadians are shocked by the statements made by former Prime Minister under the National Democratic Government, Mr. George Brizan, in relation to the incident that recently at the sitting of parliament where former Prime Minister Dr. the Hon. Keith Mitchell was asked to leave the house after he was interrupted by members of the Government side without them going through speaker.

One former principal revealed that he was quite appalled at the sentiments articulated by the former leader George Brizan, and was of the opinion that Mr. Brizan seemed to have either selective memory loss or that he is overtly playing political games.

The educator said that he is not sure whether or not Mr. Brizan can recollect his actions in the swearing-in ceremony of former Governor General of Grenada, Sir Danny Williams, back in 1996.

The former educator, who has contributed over thirty years of quality service to this nation, said he remembered clearly Mr. Brizan’s action  in 1996 – at the time holding the office of the Leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition.  He stated that in his opinion, Mr. Brizan had shown total and complete disrespect to the highest office in the land by unceremoniously leading a walk-out of parliament because he disagreed with the Her Majesty’s recommendation for Governor General of Grenada.

He described the former leader of the N.D.C ‘moralizations’ as unfortunate and hypocritical as he believes that the stand taken by Dr. Mitchell to protest against the unfair treatment meted out to him in Parliament pales in comparison to what Mr. Brizan did as Opposition Leader back in 1996.

The former principal believes that Dr. Mitchell’s action was in response to other members of the government side who had crudely initiated the discussion across the floor without the speakers permission. [Listen here]

The former principal also believes that the speaker, in an effort to demonstrate impartiality, should have signal a warning to ALL members involved and if he believed that an apology was necessary, then it should not have been demanded from Dr. Mitchell alone, but also from the other members of the government side who were just as guilty of the same parliamentary infractions and would have disrupted the opposition leader in his presentation to the honorable house thereby initiating the verbal exchange. He believes that if Mr. Brizan wanted to be perceived as an objective and unbiased commentator, then he should have also criticized the actions of the members of the government’s side.

It must be noted that Prime Minister Tillman Thomas did in the end, smartly admit that members on his of the house was wrong and that the incident was "uncalled for". [watch PM Thomas admittance]. One would recall that in 2007 the then Opposition Leader Minister Tillman Thomas verbally abused the then speaker of the House, Lawrence Joseph; pointing fingers at him, shouting and accusing him of playing political games. [Watch]