Opposition Leader Ralph Gonsalves has rejected allegations that his party's operatives fed information about Friday's Green Hill shooting to foreign news organisations.
Speaking on Star Radio on Monday, Gonsalves attributed the worldwide coverage to the magnitude of the violence, which killed four people and injured four others, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines' standing in international affairs.
Activists from the ruling New Democratic Party had claimed that ULP supporters deliberately contacted overseas media. Gonsalves called the accusation unfounded, saying: "Some NDP activists, I'm told, spreading the thing over the weekend that this thing has gotten large coverage throughout the world, it is true it has received large coverage, is because ULP people sending information. I mean, I've never heard anything more absurd in all my life."
He explained that foreign news outlets gather information from local reporting, regional journalists and other channels before deciding independently what to publish. The shooting drew attention from Al Jazeera, ABC News, Fox News, the New York Post, the Daily Mail, the Daily Express and the BBC, alongside wire services and smaller outlets including the Oskaloosa Herald in Iowa.
Gonsalves pointed to factors that naturally attract global media interest: SVG's seat on the UN Security Council in 2020 and 2021, its leadership of CELAC, and its reputation as a tourism destination. He noted that the current prime minister has also publicised the country's challenges internationally.
Comparing the shooting to a July 2023 incident in Kingstown that killed five people, which occurred while he held office. Gonsalves observed that Friday's event generated substantially more overseas coverage despite a lower death toll.
He rejected any suggestion that his party would seek to harm the country's reputation. "It's not in the ULP DNA to bad-mouth St. Vincent and the Grenadines," he said.
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