Corbin denies no-confidence motion moved against Trotman
Stabroek News
July 18, 2002
A motion of no confidence was not moved against PNC/R central executive member, Raphael Trotman at the party's general members meeting last Sunday, PNC/R chairman Robert Corbin declared yesterday.
Contacted by Stabroek News following a report in yesterday's Guyana Chronicle which said that the motion was proposed and thrown out by the meeting, Corbin said: "As chairman of the party I don't know of any resolution or motion raised at the meeting. I don't know where they got that from."
However, PNC/R sources tell Stabroek News that an informal suggestion was made by a party member for Trotman to be censured for a statement he had made to Stabroek News on the PNC/R's culpability for the July 3rd storming of the Office of the President. The party member suggested various options including asking Trotman to resign from the party or moving to have him expelled. This was immediately and overwhelmingly rejected by the meeting, the sources say.
Trotman had stated, following the July 3 incidents of arson and the storming of the Presidential Complex, that the PNC/R should share some of the blame for what occurred since the party was involved in the mobilisation of the protesters. He made it clear that it was not the intention of the party for the protest to end up the way it did.
The official position of the party was that it was in no way responsible for what happened. The party chairman had said the PNC/R always operated within the confines of the law when demonstrations were organised. He blamed the incidents on criminal elements which infiltrated the demonstration.
Party leader Desmond Hoyte had said the nature of the PNC/R allows for a multiplicity of views by its members. He declared, however, that party policy is determined by its leader and the statements issued at press conferences were party policy.
Corbin had said at one such press conference that the PNC/R bore no responsibility for the tragic events of July 3.