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Activist Frank Da Silva among protesters in Kingstown on Thursday. (iWN photo)
Activist Frank Da Silva among protesters in Kingstown on Thursday. (iWN photo)
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A former activist for the ruling Unity Labour Party (ULP) says that the administration’s COVID-19 mandate and its attitude towards protesters will force the party into opposition for “another hundred years”.

Frank Da Silva, a one-time supporter of the main opposition New Democratic Party, threw his support behind the ULP in 2015 and emerged as the party’s main communications hatchet man in the five years thereafter.

However, Da Silva and the ULP fell out last year over the coronavirus pandemic, and he no longer hosts programmes on the party’s radio station, Star FM.

Da Silva was among protesters in Kingstown, on Thursday, where the Public Service Union and the NDP held demonstrations against the government’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

On Aug. 6, hours after a protest in which Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves was struck in the head and injured, lawmakers passed, without opposition support, changes to the Public Health Law, mandating vaccines for certain categories of workers.

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A change to the Medical Officer’s Act will allow doctors specially selected by the State to determine whether a person for whom vaccination is required should be exempted on medical grounds. 

“Look at something, these people don’t learn. Why the Labour Party was out of power for how long until they get to join up with some other group? You know why? Because of the stupidness like this that was going on.

“Then NDP got in there and start to do stupidness. What happened? How is it that that these guys don’t learn? The ULP is going down the same road of Labour Party before and Mitchell. Well, once the next election is called, they better get rid of the name ‘ULP’ because it would take them another hundred years to get back in office. It is stupid; it is dumb politics to be doing this,” Da Silva told iWitness News at the protest.

“Listen, when you are doing wrong, it doesn’t matter to me. Wrong is wrong,” Da Silva told iWitness News, when asked about his relationship with the ULP.

“I used to criticise [then Prime Minister James] Mitchell.  You remember the Ottley Hall thing? Almost all the documents that Mr. Maraj got, I gave it to him.

“You remember in 2011 the [the NDP] filed something in their (the court) against Ralph? Who stopped it?  Me personally stopped it. The tale of two tapes. Go look for it. So, you see this has nothing to do with friend. Wrong is wrong. When you are right, I going say you are right, and when you’re wrong, I’m gonna be merciless. Merciless!” Da Silva said.

Da Silva said that COVID-19 vaccine should not be made mandatory because there is no information on their long-term effects.

“In Israel, they are now talking about vaccines number four; jab number 4.  How could anybody want to force anybody to take jab number one, when they have no clue what this vaccines is gonna do to you? None!” Da Silva said.

“The Israeli — they’re calling him the czar — saying they need a fourth jab in Israel. The fourth one! Look it there. How many the people gonna buy for the people in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. This is bulls**t,” Da Silva said, pointing to a copy of an international news story on the situation in Israel. 

“When it comes to wrong, I don’t ha’ no side.  This is f**g*** wrong. What’s going on here is nothing but bulls**t. And I want Ralph Gonsalves to hear me,” Da Silva said, pointing a row of police officers who had lined across the street, blocking pedestrian and vehicular traffic.

“Ralph Gonsalves brags about his behaviour in Jamaica at the UWI. So what he doing here?” Da Silva said.

He was referring to the student protest that Gonsalves, 75, led in Kingston five decades ago, which he has said was the beginning of his political career.

“Ralph Gonsalves said he led a protest, went around the police barricade, violated that in Jamaica to protest. So what he doing now? What’s he doing now?

“He’s embarrassing me, frankly … because I stood up for this man over and over again. And he ought not to be doing this. It’s just simply wrong. Period. Pull it back. Do like what James Mitchell did [in 2000].

“When people come out in the street, he called printery and shred the document and told the governor general he ain’t sending it. It done,” Da Silva said.

He was referring to Mitchell’s scrapping of “The Greedy Bill” — which would have made senators pensionable — after large-scale protests across the country.

Police Protesters
Police officers and protesters in Kingstown on Thursday. (iWN photo)

“Because there is no reason under the sun for anybody to vaccinate when you have no clue about the long-term effect of this thing here. We know what it is doing now. It’s killing people. Let’s debate the issue. Let’s debate this. Don’t tell me about anti-vaxxer,” Da Silva said. 

“Is the vaccine protecting anybody? What happened to the people in St. Lucia? Were they protected?” he said, referring to two fully-vaccinated people in St. Lucia, who died of COVID-19.

Medical Director at the Respiratory Hospital in St. Lucia, Dr. Alicia Eugene-Ford said that the two people had “other illnesses”.

“And why they not telling us about anybody in St. Vincent? Apparently, the only place in the world where there has been no adverse effects is St. Vincent and the Grenadines. And I know that is a damn lie,” Da Silva said.

Asked if he knows anyone personally who has had an adverse reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine, Da Silva said:

“Let them tell us about a fella named Buddy James from Central Kingstown. Tell us why he died. I know other people, they not dead, but I know after the vaccine, they sick for 10 days. The person was working for an international company, the person quit. And people know. This thing is just wrong.”

The Ministry of Health has repeatedly said that no one has died in St. Vincent and the Grenadines as a result of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Asked his views about Thursday’s protest in terms of the crowd, the energy and the reaction of the police, Da Silva said:

“Well, listen. You see the police, they claim they are doing their job. My comments are directed to the people who send them to cause trouble because that’s all this is meant to do — cause trouble and Ralph Gonsalves of all persons, should not be doing it.”

iWitness News noted to Da Silva that the prime minister is not the commander of the police.

“Well, call the commissioner — tell the fella cease and desist. Call him. He could call him,” he said.  

Gonsalves has repeatedly stated publicly that he does not instruct the Commissioner of Police on policing matters and that he constrains  his interventions with the police chief to policy matters.  

10 replies on “Vaccine mandate will put ULP in opposition for ‘another hundred years’ (+Video)”

  1. This is plain ignorance. Ralph should mandate the vaccine. If this man is speaking for the folks who do not want to take the vaccine. Ralph is right. COVID 19 kills, the vaccine saves lives.

  2. Nathan 'Jolly' Green says:

    Look at the batons they are holding to beat the Vincentian people about the head, they just love their jobs when they can have such fun.

  3. Award-winning businessman says:

    Good information! I know many names of persons that died after getting vaccinated. But Oh! They died of coincidence!
    ONE MAIN REASON WHY PEOPLE ARE SO ANGRY BECAUSE, IN A SMALL COUNTRY LIKE THIS ONE, ..WORD TRAVELS, SO PEOPLE KNOW VERY WELL THEY ARE BEING LIED TO!

    The government is demonstrating they cannot be trusted to tell us the truth! Bye, bye, ULP!

  4. You may not like Frank Da Silva but I applaud a man who CALLS A SPADE A SPADE and is not afraid of the consequences!!!

  5. Plain talk frank , we need more people like you to come out and say wrong is wrong when it is, but at the same time you have to watch your back from your enemy, they don’t like to hear the truth, no man is an ISLAND,only time with TEll

  6. DWIGHT ANDERSON says:

    WELL SAID BROTHER! GOD BLESS YOU AND THE FREE GOD-LOVING PEOPLE OF SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES!!! WE NEED NO VACCINE BECAUSE WE ARE NOT ILL, NOR DO WE CARRY A VIRUS, NOR ARE WE AT RISK OF BECOMING ILL…THE ENTIRE PANDEMIC IS A HOAX. THE AIM IS ABSOLUTE CONSOLIDATION OF THE POWER OVER HUMAN LIFE BY SUPER-WEALTHY PEOPLE. NO ONE CAN RIGHTFULLY LEGISLATE-AWAY OTHER PEOPLE’S SOVEREIGNTY, WILL POWER AND HUMANITY. THAT IS JUST DRACONIAN AND TYRANNICAL AND DICTATORIAL. A FORCED INJECTION IS TANTAMOUNT TO RAPE. WE ARE DEALING WITH CRAFTY SLAVE MASTERS AND NAZIS IN THESE DAYS POSING AS LEGITIMATE POLITICIANS. WE SHALL NOT BOW TO THEM. I’LL BE THE FIRST PERSON TO VOLUNTEER TO HAVE MY HEAD CHOPPED OFF IN A PUBLIC SQUARE IF THAT IS THE PENALTY FOR NON-COMPLIANCE TO THIS FORCED VACCINATION EDICT. THE ULTIMATE AIM OF THE EVIL SPIRITUAL MASTERMIND OF THE HOAX IS TO AFFIX ALL HUMAN BEINGS WITH GENETIC & COMPUTER/TECHNOLOGY-BASED IDENTIFICATION WHICH CANNOT BE COUNTEFEITED. WE SHALL NOW SEE WHO ON EARTH SERVES GOD AND WHO SERVES MAMMON. MAY GOD WHO FASHIONED ALL MEN AND WOMEN WITHIN THE WOMBS OF THEIR MOTHERS EXCEEDINGLY BLESS, PROTECT, AND SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF SAINT VINCENT AND THE GRENADINES WHO CHOOSE TO ABSTAIN FROM THE VACCINE. IN TRUTH, MAY GOD BLESS ALL SUCH PEOPLE ON EARTH.

  7. DWIGHT ANDERSON says:

    WE HAVE COME TO LEARN THAT THIS COMMENT SECTION HEAVILY CURTAILS FREE SPEECH WHICH IS NOT IN FAVOUR OF VACCINE TYRANNY. A NON-CONFORMIST COMMENT WILL GET YOU A FALSE MESSAGE FROM THE SITE ADMISTRATOR CLAIMING THAT YOUR COMMENT IS A DUPLICATE AND NEED NOT BE REPOSTED…PURE LIE. APPARENTLY HE WHO CONTROLS THE INFORMATION PLATFORM CONTROLS THE FLOW OF TRUTHS, LIES AND HALF-TRUTHS. I LAUGH AT THEM ALL.

  8. Frank. Not when the SPECIAL SELECTED
    are put at the gates as gate keepers to prevent others from getting pass the gates. Not even death can move them fron there.

Comments closed.