Plagiarism counter charge

The following is a statement by the Dominica Labour Party (DLP) in response to allegations that Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit has been involved in plagiarism. That charge came from the opposition United Workers Party (UWP) reacted to an earlier claim from the DLP that the UWP political leade Lennox Lintonr has plagiarized in major speeches.

"The Dominica Labour Party decries with ridicule, attempts by operatives of the United Workers Party to play down the impact of proven allegations of plagiarism against the leader of that party, Lennox Linton.

'In recent days, the opposition has circulated clippings from speeches of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit, insisting they were lifted from the speeches of others, including the late David Thompson, then Prime Minister of Barbados.

"What the facts now reveal are that in both instances, the referenced remarks had been supplied to all speakers at the respective conferences, for the specific purpose of inclusion in their presentations.

"According to the DLP, this is normal, established practice that should have been known to United Workers Party operatives, wanting to lead Dominica in the 21st century.

"Anytime there are such international conferences, reports from various select committees are circulated to all presenters for the expressed purpose of inclusion in their various submissions and updates to the meeting.

"Consequently, there is evidence to show, that the said referenced updates on the Gatt/WTO negotiations and preparations for the Conference on Small Island Developing States, were contained in the speeches of several other speakers and leaders, including Mr. Jean Ping, then President of the United Nations General Assembly, the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Mauritius Sir Anerood Jugnauth, KCMG, PC, QC and President Tong of Kiribati. They all used the same or very similar language when they spoke at the referenced conference.

"In the case of the Caricom address, the same principle applied where all leaders would have been quoting from the same brief, as provided by technocrats from the Caricom Secretariat. These are updates provided by the Secretariat for deliberate and authorized inclusion in the submissions of presenters. Such material therefore cannot be stolen, as it is freely given and made available to all persons down to address these conferences.

"Therefore, the Dominica LAbour Party insists, were operatives of the United Workers Party paying closer attention to detail, they would have realized that several presenters, other that Prime Minister Skerrit and late Prime Minister Thompson, included the same facts in their updates to the meeting. "This, the Dominica Labour Party declared, is standard practice and bears no similarity or relation to the wholesale lifting of another's personal perspective, vision and program and passing it off as your own.

"The Dominica Labour Party insists that what Lennox Linton did was plagiarism of the worst kind; as the speech crafted for Allen Chastenet was scripted for Allen Chastenet, for delivery to a St. Lucia audience by Allen Chastenet.

"It should therefore NEVER have been reproduced in whole or in part by another, without reference to it having been the thoughts and ideas of the owner of such intellectual property.

"The Dominica Labour Party maintains that it is laughable, in the face of this clear and proven despicable act on the part of Lennox Linton, to attempt to compare the two scenarios.

"One, the party maintains, is a Prime Minister utilizing briefs, as made available by technocrats for the expressed purpose of inclusion in the various speeches by presenters, and the other is the blatant stealing of another's thoughts, words and ideas and passing them off as your own.

"It is especially grievous, when one takes into consideration that the said Lennox Linton claimed, a few days prior to his unmasking, that he wrote his own speeches from his head.

"The question that therefore is yet to be answered is how could identical thoughts, vision and philosophical outlook emanate from the heads of two leaders, in two different Caribbean countries, spanning the period of one year.

"At its tell-all meeting last Thursday evening, the Dominica Labour Party produced tangible and irrefutable evidence to show that the Leader of the United Workers Party, Lennox Linton stole the ideas, beliefs, sound bites, political themes or ideologies from Allen Chastanet's 2013 address, and sound bites from John F Kennedy, Hitler's Nazi Party, the singer Josh Groban and poem of Josiah Gilbert in his September 1st 2013 acceptance speech and 2014 article on DNO, and sought to represent them as his political ideas, beliefs, theme, and plan....all emanating from his head.

"This conduct, the DLP insists, shows that Linton lacks the essential quality of honesty required for public office. In any other civilized democratic Nation a politician who did what Linton in fact did would have been fired by the Party or forced resigned".