ABLP Condemns UPP Deliberate Lie As Election Desperation

PRESS STATEMENT

The Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party categorically rejects as false, malicious, and deliberately deceptive the so-called letter circulating on a recently created website and purporting to seek action by the United States Attorney General against the Government of Antigua and Barbuda and members of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party.

The document claims to have been issued by an entity calling itself the Caribbean Anticorruption Association. There is no evidence that any such organisation exists. The letter itself is a concoction of recycled accusations, wild assertions, and politically motivated falsehoods advanced for years by leaders of the United Progressive Party (UPP).

Its fabrication is further exposed by its own obvious errors. Among them, the letter lists as a copied recipient Ambassador Linda Taglialatela as U.S. Ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean, even though Ambassador Taglialatela left that office at the end of December 2023, more than two years ago. That basic error alone demonstrates that the authors were dealing not in fact, but in fiction.

The website on which this falsehood has been published is equally suspect. It bears the name mariabirdbrowne.com, yet carries material attacking Maria Bird Browne, her husband Prime Minister Gaston Browne, and others. No reasonable person could believe that Mrs Browne would create or host defamatory attacks upon herself and her family. The use of her name in this way is plainly intended to mislead the public and to manufacture a false appearance of authenticity.

The so-called letter is a political smear claiming to be an official communication. It strings together a litany of allegations that the UPP and its spokespersons have repeated for years without proof. Many of these claims have already been ventilated publicly and tested in courts in Antigua and Barbuda and in the United States, where they have been dismissed as without merit.

Official inquiries to the Office of the United States Attorney General confirm that no such letter has been received. In any event, that Office does not act on submissions from persons or organisations that are not verifiable.

This is therefore not simply false. It is a calculated lie from beginning to end.

It is now evident that this fabrication forms part of a deliberate attempt to deceive the people of Antigua and Barbuda during the general election campaign. Unable to defeat the ABLP on record, performance, policy, and leadership, the opposition has resorted to anonymous propaganda, invented organisations, and fabricated credibility.

The people of Antigua and Barbuda are entitled to ask a simple question: if a political party is prepared to lie in order to gain office, how can it be trusted to govern truthfully, honestly, or responsibly?

The Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party remains focused on the future of this country, on its record of achievement, and on its continuing plans for national progress. We will not be distracted by cowardly falsehoods circulated from behind a mask.

We urge the public to reject this fabrication completely and to treat it with the contempt it deserves.

Chet Greene
Chairman
Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party