STORIES

Page 12 ISSUE 146 Friday 4th MARCH, 2016
T&T POLITICS HAS NOT REALLY
CHANGED OVER THE YEARS
quotation and state what,
CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY if anything, in the political
administration of T&T
with T G. MENDES
has really changed in the
entire illusion of “Independence” century between 1884 and
body politic readily afforded T&T with 1984, save a “browning” of
“Our
is tainted by indecent haste in 1962 by the leadership, a deterioration
the mephitic breath, the
deadly influence of the
Crown Colony system of
a war weary ex Colonial
power. A politically unprepared
and weary nation
in the quality of same
and a degeneration into the
politics of race?
Government. Until we has and is still paying a bitter
Having expired in office
uproot that curse from
the face of the land, those
things and others of the
price for that indecent
haste.
One need only recall the
25 years after acquiring
power in ‘56, the warped
genius that was Eric Eustace
same nature must continue
gubernatorial autocracy
Williams ensured via
to blast every effort
at establishing and maintaining
those public institutions
the life and breath
of which, in all civilised
communities is publicity.
Our system of Government
is founded on secrecy......Crown
and arrogance which TT’s
first PM appropriated from
the departed Colonial Governors
in ‘62 and the veil
of secrecy behind which
he and his PNM attempted
to conceal his objective of
constitutional dictatorship
a malign legacy that the euphoria
which attended his
PNM’s first defeat in ‘86
was of brief duration.
By ‘88, as a result of his ex
deputy’s, new found Prime
Ministerial arrogance and
a Treasury pillaged by the
Dr. ERIC WILLIAMS
BASDEO PANDAY
JACK WARNER
Colony with scathing contempt PNM administration which
Government is killing us,
let us, at any cost get rid
of it.!”
The quotation above was
written in 1884 by a French
Creole advocate for efficient,
transparent and progressive
self governance.
Phillip Rostant’s plaintive
closing cry for transparency
and equity in politics - “let
us, at any cost get rid of it” -
the very essence of political
necessity.
It has remained as relevant
today as when he
wrote it more than a century
ago. This is so despite the
for a deluded electorate,
including its firmest supporters.
So what has really
changed politically, economically
or socially since
1884?
The answer to anyone old
enough to have experienced
the pre Independence era, is
of course too much and too
soon!
Consider the first 28
years of PNM maladministration,
corruption, arrogance
and ignorance. Now
substitute the political acronym
of “PNM” for “Crown
Colony Govt” in the above
preceded them, the NAR,
which defeated the PNM
33/3, was by ‘88 reduced to
a helpless truncated shadow
of the victors of ‘86.
It was thus no accident
that having barely survived
an attempted coup in ‘90,
like a ripe plum that deliberately
truncated NAR
fell back into the lap of an
even more corrupt and inefficient
PNM in the GE of
‘91.Sufficient to state that
had the ULF Indo led component
of the NAR, sine
qua non of its victory in
‘86 not been frustrated out
USVI Senate passed DNA Testing Bill
ST THOMAS, USVI
- The US Virgin
Islands (USVI)
Senate last Friday unanimously
passed a Bill
which would require
DNA testing of persons
arrested for violent felonies.
The Bill will now be
forwarded to Governor
Kenneth Mapp for his
consideration.
DNA testing is widely
considered to bring criminal
investigation practices
into the 21st century,
since DNA is more likely
to be present even if fingerprints
are not.
Currently, 28 states
have passed legislation
to allow DNA testing for
arrestees. This legislation,
commonly known as “Katie’s
Law”, is named in
memory of Katie Sepich,
a New Mexico graduate
student who was brutally
raped and strangled. Her
murderer was found three
years later, only after DNA
taken from an incarcerated
felon serving time for
aggravated burglary was
identified as the perpetrator.
If legislation had been in
place, Sepich’s killer would
have been linked immediately
to the crime.
Senator Novelle Francis,
chairman of the Senate’s
Committee on Homeland
Security, Public Safety and
Justice, said the bill has immediate
value for law enforcement.
“Law enforcement needs
all of the tools at its disposal
in order to create safer communities,”
he stated. “Collecting
DNA from arrestees
can help law enforcement
to identify criminals and
also catch repeat offenders
sooner.”
Francis met the Sepich
family last year while attending
the Legislative
Summit of the National
Conference of State Legislatures.
Renee Gumbs Carty,
deputy attorney general
for the US Virgin Islands
Department of Justice,
called the Bill “smart,
sensible and timely.” It
has been hailed by the Attorney
General’s Office
as one of the strongest
crime fighting measures
the 31st Legislature has
created.
Federal funds are available
to assist states and
territories with implementing
DNA analysis. In
addition, recently enacted
legislation sponsored by
Francis, which establishes
a forensic crime lab, also
supports the territory’s
ability to collect and analyze
DNA information.
Governor Mapp signed
act 7810 into law on January
21, 2016
of the successful coalition
by the racial intolerance of
its flawed PM, which it invited
to lead them, the NAR
would not have had to face
the unsuccessful coup attempt
of 27/7/90.
While never proven, it
is still widely believed and
claimed by the. coup leader
himself that the PNM in opposition
were aware of and
encouraged that failed insurrection!
Be that as it may, by 1994
Rostant’s crie de Coeur of
1884 was as topical and apt
as it remains today, save
that the “curse” which Rostant
railed against then was
replaced in 1956 by the malign
Williams legacy and its
by product, the scourge of
racial politics! By 1994 the
ULF - the real victor of ‘86
- under the same Basdeo
Panday who was denied
his logical leadership of the
NAR because, allegedly,
“T&T was not ready for an
Indo PM”, was challenging
the PNM under the acronym
“UNC”.
In the premature GE
called by an embattled PNM
in ‘95 only that scourge of
race denied the Indocentric
UNC outright victory.
It won instead a parity of
seats with the majority vote
with 17/17 seats. The other
two Tobago seats were retained
by the same Afro
ex PM who had destroyed
the NAR. “At the end of
the day,” the UNC formed
the govt. and that destructive
ex PM was elevated to
President. That deal was to
prove as unholy for T&T as
any struck in its name with
the Devil! Suffice it to state
that from ‘95 to its obscene
Presidential removal in favour
of a minority supported
PNM on.24/12/01 the
nation enjoyed its first, and
last, progressive and equi-
table political dispensation
to date.
This is a fact reinforced
by increased margins of
victory in the GEs of both
‘2000 and ‘01 available
only at the expense of the
Afrocentric PNM, an embarrassing
fact which few
non Indos are yet prepared
to acknowledge!
The depths of ethno/political
obscenity dredged
by my homeland since
24/12/01 is in direct proportion
to the apathy with
which that racially motivated
political obscenity was
accepted.
Nothing is a more powerful
lament for the future
of T&T than the warped
genius of the first “Father
of the Nation,” whose dead
and corrupt hand was obvious
in that obscenity.
Williams had already devoted
his genius to either
silencing, or suborning the
descendants of those like
Phillip Rostant, whose
powerful protests would
have ensured that such political
obscenities were not
accepted with the apathy
which has since attended
them!
For that abdication of
their democratic responsibility,
those demonised “descendants
of an exploitative
French Creole,” now mercantile
minority who sold
out their nation to Williams,
their demoniser, for higher
profit margins these many
years later, still have much
to answer for. Sufficient to
state that via the ongoing
mercantile exploitation of
their own customers, they
have effectively justified
Williams’ earlier demonisation
of them as a class of
exploiters!
Sadly, by ‘62 all voices
of political integrity were
effectively stifled at the
post independence prospect
of Williams’ bid for constitutional
dictatorship.
They had all by then
long either been exiled, or
effectively and profitably
suborned by Williams. In
their absence, if Williams’
dangerous objective is not
yet to succeed under some
other leader, it is vital that
the nation escapes the ongoing
political stasis of
2 party racial politics, in
which any third party, however
equitable or viable is
rejected as an opportunistic
interloper.
Such is yet the power of
that lingering malign legacy
of a long dead Eric Williams.
Its powerful influence
still confuses saner counsel,
like the proverbial “elephant
in the room”!
If T&T is ever to be free
of the political scourge protested
against in 1884, it
will do so only by implementing
Rostant’s message
of 100+years ago “let us at
any cost get rid of it”
That vital requirement,
presupposes the existence
of a credible and effective
racially nonaligned political
alternative capable,
experienced and responsible
enough to adequately
fill the vacuum created by
popular rejection of both
racially oriented current
political dispensations.
If only therefore, in honour
and memory of those
long dead political patriots
who paved Eric Williams’
path to political independence,
which he prostituted
in his bid for constitutional
dictatorship, let T&T,
recognise and elevate,
rather than denigrate the
only individual capable of
effecting national salvation.
Will the Warner ILP
please step forward!..