Prime Minister Mia Mottley has chastised animal rights activists who she chided for waging a public campaign that portrays Barbados as a nation that turns a blind eye to animal cruelty.
She declared that the actions of these individuals were tantamount to “terrorism against the state”, as she defended her government’s efforts to deal with the animal abuse problem.
Though not naming any particular organisation, a straight-talking Mottley publicly chastised those seeking to lead boycotts against the island in response to comments by two activists at Wednesday night’s Christ Church Speaks town hall meeting at the Christ Church Foundation School.
The Prime Minister said while she was horrified by and would not condone maltreatment of “any living organism”, the “campaign waged against the country that this is no more a tropical paradise is a disproportionate action on the part of those who would like to have action taken by the Government”.
“I didn’t threaten anybody and I not am not going to allow anybody to threaten the state either. So, let us be clear that you all need to take that off the table,” Mottley declared.
Refusing to back down as the speakers interjected to distance themselves from such smear campaigns, the Prime Minister insisted: “Let us be clear that we need to take that off the table because then that is a form of terrorism against the state, and I’m sure that’s not what you meant…. However much we may disagree on domestic issues, however much we may want to ask people to do better, … it cannot be that two wrongs make a right.”
Mottley made her position clear after one activist from the Be Their Voice Movement insisted that education and stricter legislation were necessary, and another, Debbie Funk, demanded answers about a case in which a dog that was taken from “a very bad situation” by the Animal Control Unit was returned to the owner and was later poisoned.
The duo’s contributions to the town hall meeting came amid concerns about animals being kept in poor conditions, not fed properly, and physically abused or abandoned, and the outrage at specific cases, including last month’s alleged drowning of a dog at Pebbles Beach which led to a man being charged.
Charities have presented Prime Minister Mottley with petitions stating their case that animal abuse cases are on the rise and the need for laws to protect the rights of animals. Some of the petitions, stories, photos and videos highlighting animal cruelty have gone viral on social media, attracting the attention of visitors and Barbadians living abroad, with some even calling for tourists to boycott the island.
However, Mottley and Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Indar Weir who attended the town hall meeting insisted that authorities were making efforts to address the issue and were communicating directly with stakeholders.
Indar Weir
The Prime Minister said she had received correspondence from animal rights advocates and her office has been working on getting the relevant legislation drafted, but the Government was experiencing a delay in getting laws drafted due to a shortage of draughtsmen.
Mottley told the audience, however, that there were clear efforts to deal with the issue and she condemned those who sought to give the impression that authorities were sitting on their hands while animal abuse persisted.
“This is a country where you wrote me and we took action…. This is a country where the Prime Minister asked the Minister [Weir] to meet with you . . . so that there is no reason for us to be hotting up the place so!” she insisted.
“We’ve agreed that we are going to look at the legislation and update it. We’ve agreed that we will continue to do a public education programme, and Minister Weir has been the one representing this to me, so I think that what we can do is that. But what we can’t do is have people saying that they are going to stop Barbadians from working by putting a programme internationally against the country because people feel that we are not treating animals properly.
“Murder takes place in every society but it doesn’t mean that because a murder has taken place in Barbados that this is not a country for people to visit, because the reality is that it’s all relative still,” Mottley added.
Minister Weir told the packed auditorium that he held talks with stakeholders three weeks ago and it was agreed there must be harmonisation between his Ministry and the Ministry of Health and Wellness, which is responsible for the Animal Control Unit, and that there would be further consultation to bring about needed changes.
“But I also drew to the attention of everyone sitting in that meeting that we live in a Barbadian culture where you have very poor people who love animals and want to keep their pets. Many of them don’t have guard walls or fencing so they have to keep the dogs on a leash,” he pointed out.
“If, in truth and in fact, we are going to go forward collectively, what solutions can you offer to those people who want to keep a pet but don’t have the financial resources? So, you don’t like the condition under which you are seeing the pet being kept, how do we work together to provide the support to those people?”
Weir also defended his actions in the particular case mentioned by Funk.
He explained that when he and Ministry of Health inspectors visited the residence in St George, he was satisfied the dog was not being mistreated, based on the loving relationship he witnessed between the animal and the owner.
“The reality is that I cannot deprive the poor woman who is crying because she loves her pet but she does not have fencing, she does not have a place to keep the dog other than by a kennel. The reality of it is that this is Barbados, people love their pets but they cannot afford to be able to accommodate them as others may wish,” Weir maintained.
“The family is not a wealthy family. We agreed that the health inspectors would go around and visit the dog on a weekly basis. The week that they went to visit the dog, they come back and report to me that somebody poisoned the dog. A woman crying her heart out will not do a thing like that,” Weir told the audience, adding that she had already informed Funk that a full investigation would be conducted and “the full force of the law” would be brought to bear where necessary.
Prime Minister Mottley subsequently urged Barbadians not to make assumptions about animal owners based on cultural differences and “other realities”.
“Indar’s point about people who don’t live with a fence is a valid point. By the same token, there are some people who have a lot of land and the dogs can run freely…. I don’t want us to assume about people because it’s going to be a form of profiling that is going to get us into trouble. Let us work together,” she insisted.
