Today, Monday and Tuesday, Trinidad and Tobago will climax its annual Carnival with pulsating calypso and steel band music providing the background for the world’s greatest street festival.
The pre-Lent bacchanal provides a welcome escape from the myriad problems plaguing the twin island republic. Dark clouds hover ominously over the country and the five-party People’s Partnership government led by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar.
The coalition’s current unpopularity found expression at the calypso monarch semifinals two Saturdays ago when Minister of Arts and Multiculturalism Winston Peters (top calypsonian Gypsy) and the minister of housing were greeted with a stream of boos and toilet paper on arrival.
Following the unpopular six-month state of emergency last year, including a nightly curfew intended to restrict the growing crime rate, the most recent action attracting condemnation from government, opposition and non-governmental organizations came after police officers swooped down on Newsday’s offices and the home of a senior political reporter.
Hard drives, cellphones and computers were seized by Anti-Corruption Investigations Bureau (ACIB) officers. They were seeking information about an article written on the Integrity Commission last December. Sadly, police cars park outside the reporter’s home nightly.
It is alleged the raids followed a complaint by the commission’s chairman, former media mogul Ken Gordon, relating to a disagreement between himself and former deputy Retired Judge Gladys Gafoor.
Her appointment was suspended by President Max Richards and an investigative tribunal headed by the former Caribbean Court of Justice president quickly established.
The attorney general lost no time publicly distancing himself from the “sudden, unexplained” ACIB raids, lamenting his pleas “have fallen on deaf ears” and calling on the commissioner to explain what took place and why.
He further said he “considers the continued retention of the ACIB under his portfolio an embarrassment” and intends to ask the police commissioner to assume full control for the unit.
Caribbean people deplore fascist police tactics and whoever authorize their actions. Anything impinging on the freedom of regional journalists to perform their civic responsibilities without fear and intimidation by the police or any other source must be denounced in the strongest possible terms.
The public’s right to know is paramount in normal times. A journalist has every right to protect his sources, described as “sacred” by the irate prime minister. Free, unfettered media are treasured handmaidens of democracy in societies where freedom of expression and the Press are constitutionally guaranteed rights.
Former prime minister Patrick Manning rushed into a radio station confronting two journalists over a commentary. Last December police raided a television station. These police state actions are neither for the media’s comfort nor country’s good, and must be stopped.
Another example of bizarre police behaviour was revealed last month with a public outcry after the commissioner leased a light aircraft for three months’ surveillance duties at a cost of $1 million. The question asked by everyone, including the minister of national security, was: who authorized it?
Lest you forget, the pressured commissioner was imported from Canada on a salary twice that of the president, and many Trinidadians constantly say the gains from his recruitment remain invisible to the naked eye.
As if these problems are not enough, the prospect looms of a 90-day strike at state-owned Petrotrin by workers of one of the major oilfield unions. The impact of this action, scheduled to begin right after Carnival, could be a major national setback bringing into play the negotiating skills and goodwill of former unionists in the People’s Partnership administration.
Another major problem on the prime minister’s plate relates to a story in last week’s London Sunday Times claiming that “former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner is at the centre of hundreds of thousands of pounds of missing aid money intended for earthquake-stricken Haiti”.
Warner, also a major regional football heavyweight who substantially bankrolled the winning coalition, is the minister of transport and has acted as prime minister. The Times reports he personally requested US$250 000 from FIFA, world football’s governing body, to aid the devastated nation.
However, it also reported the Haitian football chief saying only $60 000 was received, although Warner always told him the money was there but he never got it. Questions are also being asked about another $500 000 sent by South Korea. Meanwhile, FIFA is withholding Warner’s TT$230 000 annual pension.
There is no love lost between Warner, FIFA’s president and the British who allege he is “personally responsible” for their failure to survive the first round of voting to host World Cup 2018 after pledging support.
In the whirlwind of adverse circumstances, little wonder the PNM opposition filed a no-confidence motion against government. With numbers against it, it will not succeed. But the prime minister must wonder what will emerge after the mas’ to further embarrass her government and country.
• Peter Simmons, a social scientist, is a former diplomat. Email [email protected]
