The visit to St. Vincent and the Grenadines by Jamaican dancehall artiste Vybz Kartel last August, less than a month after his release from prison, is under scrutiny after he said Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves “sent for me, private jet everything…”
There had been much speculation about the artiste’s visit to SVG after he arrived in the country soon after being freed on a technicality after 13 years in prison in connection with a murder charge.
Before arriving in Kingstown, the artiste told the media that he would be travelling to meet with “some high-tech team” possible in St. Vincent, Cuba or Switzerland to “seek out the best treatment possible”.
Several videos of the 48-year-old artiste, whose real name is Adidja Palmer, appeared on social media after he arrived at Argyle International Airport on board a private jet.
One of the videos showed the artiste seated at a dining table along with Gonsalves and his wife, Eloise Gonsalves, and other people, apparently at the Official Residence of the Prime Minister.
In comments on the state-owned NBC Radio, Gonsalves had suggested that Kartel was in SVG for special attention for Graves’ disease.
He said he had received a call “a couple of weeks” for the artiste’s lawyer, before Kartel arrived in Kingstown.
“… he called me and said that he understood that we have experts here in the field of dealing with the issue of Graves’ disease, hypothyroidism, which is the condition publicly everybody knows that Mr. Kartel, Mr. Palmer suffers from…”
However, in an interview with Drink Champs, published on Saturday, Kartel said that Gonsalves invited him to visit SVG.
One of the hosts said, “… at first, we heard you was in St. Kitts”.
“Yes. No. St. Vincent,” Kartel responded.
“I went to visit the prime minister. He sent for me, private jet, everything…” Kartel responded.
Clipping of the video went viral on Vincentian social media, with some people noting the various explanations that had come from people close to the government about Kartel visit.
Then, on Sunday, a video appeared on Gonsalves’ social media platform in which Kartel appeared to attempt to walk back his comments.
“We dey ah London. But just to clarify something that was said on Drink Champs the other day when I said the St. Vincent prime minister sent for me,” the artiste said.
“Yes, I was invited to the island by the boss himself. But I paid for my own jet because I am rich. So, if anybody misinterpret what I said, my apologies,” Kartel said.
In the same interview, Kartel spoke about the majority of doctors in Jamaica being Cubans. There are several Cuban specialists working in the public and private healthcare system in SVG.
The post on the prime minister’s Facebook page was captioned, “Of Course I invited my brethren Wurl Boss to visit us! Maybe I should invite him to come back later on this year… What do you guys think?”
The development degenerated much discussion on social and traditional media shows, with Opposition Leader Godwin Friday commenting on it on his weekly radio programme.
He called on the prime minister to explain the development, noting that at the time, Gonsalves had said that Kartel had come to SVG for medical attention.
“Nothing against our doctors and nurses, but we all know that our medical facilities in this country leave a lot to be desired. People go out to get specialist treatment. They don’t come here,” the opposition leader said.
“In any event, that was the story that we were offering this man some medical assistance. And he comes here and basically an act of mercy. That’s the phrase that was used,” Friday said, noting that Vincentians were divided in their view about that explanation.
“There needs to be clarification. Did the government spend money to bring this man here?” Friday said.
He said Kartel’s explanation in the subsequent video “obviously means that somebody reached out to him, or he sees something, and he say, ‘Well, let me go on and say something that is supposed to be a clarification”.
The opposition leader noted that in the clarification video, Kartel did not change that Gonsalves invited him to visit when he did last year.
He also noted that Kartel had corrected the interviewer when he said that the artiste had gone to St. Kitts.
“So he was quite clear as to what he wanted to communicate and to be accurate and so forth. So whatever else he says in that statement, to me has to be given a lot of weight as being credible; that he was invited to come here and private plane and all of that.”
Friday noted that Kartel joked about Gonsavles calling himself “World Boss” — which is also one of the artiste’s monikers.
“… that just makes St. Vincent and the Grenadines look like if we are some play thing, that we’re getting caught up in this silliness.
“What we need to do is to call on the prime minister; don’t wait for somebody else to be explaining and coming back with subsequent accounts of it, but come and explain to the people what exactly transpired.
“Did this man come here for medical attention? Did you invite him to come here? Did he come as your guest, as he has said, that there was a private jet involved? Whose jet was this? Did the Prime Minister or did the country pay for this?”
The opposition leader said that while Kartel later said that he paid his own way to St. Vincent, “in the first video, it sounded otherwise.
“But these are things that I think as responsible taxpayers, we need to get from the government — clarification as to what exactly transpired.”
Meanwhile, social commentator Jomo Thomas, who wrote a commentary on Kartel’s visit, said that the controversy following the artiste’s comments on the weekend were not a non-issue as some people had suggested.
Thomas, who is a former senator and speaker of the House of Assembly, recounted that he had said in his column when Kartel visited that he should not be the face of St Vincent and the Grenadines “not because I have any personal animus against Vybz Kartel, but for what he represents.
“This is man who bleached his skin, this is a man who had only weeks been released after 13 years in prison on a very serious charge of murder, and fundamentally was released on a technicality, but nonetheless, that’s the way the law works.”
Thomas suggested that Kartel explanatory video had not come without prompting.
“Because if it were a non-issue, somebody would not have felt compelled to have Vybz Kartel do a retraction of his initial statement,” said Thomas, who is also a lawyer and a journalist.
“The fact that someone felt compelled to have him do a retraction to say, ‘Look, I’m rich. I paid my way; it’s not the other way around’, is a sign that someone felt that they had a public relations issue that they had to deal with.”