Sean Nero

"Noth­ing ever hap­pened be­tween me and the pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go (Kei­th Di­az)," said Arts and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters."There's noth­ing per­son­al. Me and the pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go are friends for years," he added.He made the state­ment dur­ing an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian last Wednes­day at Nipdec's carpark lo­cat­ed at Cadiz Road, Bel­mont, the Panora­ma re­hearsal site for ten-time Na­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on Wit­co Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra.

Pe­ters' ut­ter­ances came de­spite a pub­li­cised war of words over the di­rec­tion of the steel­pan.The is­sues over which both men have been butting heads in­clude the $1,000 re­mit­tance pro­gramme to in­di­vid­ual pan­nists dur­ing the pre­lim­i­nary round of the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion, and Pe­ters' take on the one-tune syn­drome cul­ti­vat­ed by the Panora­ma com­pe­ti­tion with­in re­cent decades.Pe­ters has since slashed the pay­ment to pan­men by $200, cit­ing the dif­fi­cult eco­nom­ic cli­mate in which the coun­try now finds it­self. The Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar Cab­i­net ac­cept­ed the pro­pos­al to re­duce the pay pack­et.

In a di­rect re­sponse, Pan Trin­ba­go crit­i­cised the line min­is­ter, and sub­se­quent­ly told the gov­ern­ment that pan­men were not in­ter­est­ed in its $2 mil­lion first prize for the large con­ven­tion­al Panora­ma cham­pi­on.The pan body, in its cam­paign, said the State could keep the $1 mil­lion added to the ex­ist­ing prize of sim­i­lar val­ue, and should re­store the $1,000 pay­ment to pan­nists.At Des­per­a­does' re­hearsal venue, how­ev­er, both men put on a show, which seemed to val­i­date Pe­ters' friend­ship re­mark.

They shook hands in the glare of the me­dia, and di­a­logued cor­dial­ly, it seemed, for a lengthy pe­ri­od, while arranger Bev­er­ly Grif­fith took pan­nists through their mu­si­cal paces.Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Sen­a­tor Brigadier John Sandy, was al­so in at­ten­dance. He was joined by his spe­cial ad­vis­er Roy Au­gus­tus; Chief of De­fence Staff Brigadier Roland Maun­dy; spe­cial ad­vis­er of steel­pan mat­ters to the Art and Mul­ti­cul­tur­al­ism Min­is­ter, Pe­ter Kan­hai; and of­fi­cials of West In­di­an To­bac­co, which spon­sors Des­per­a­does.

Al­though the is­sues that caused the min­istry and Pan Trin­ba­go to be at odds re­mained un­re­solved, Pe­ters said: "We have a dif­fer­ence of opin­ion in terms of a busi­ness. Me and all the guys in Pan Trin­ba­go are friends." Pe­ters said the vis­it to Des­per­a­does' re­hearsal site was in­tend­ed to demon­strate the gov­ern­ment's ca­ma­raderie with the whole pan fra­ter­ni­ty. He hint­ed that oth­er mem­bers of Cab­i­net would be vis­it­ing the pa­n­yard through­out the sea­son, and that "even the Prime Min­is­ter is go­ing to come down some nights. The oth­ers bands have no need to be jeal­ous. We all are go­ing to pass by them."