LETTER: The UPP’s Shameless Hypocrisy: A Party That Weaponized the Law Now Pretends to Be Its Victim

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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