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Monday, July 28, 2025

It's Your Write (14-09-2011)

by

20110913

Has ter­ror ceased un­der emer­gency?

The state of emer­gency (SoE) is a won­der­ful crime plan. Ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150,000 peo­ple are un­der house ar­rest from 11 pm to 4 am each day. The hous­es of these peo­ple (and the rest of the coun­try) can be bro­ken in­to by po­lice/mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, ran­sacked (searched) and item con­fis­cat­ed.Once up­on a time crim­i­nals did the same. Ap­par­ent­ly the choice is ei­ther the blue dev­il or the pink dev­il; you can ei­ther be ter­rorised by crim­i­nals or by state au­thor­i­ty. Has the ter­ror ceased?Once up­on a time crim­i­nals might re­lieve you of in­come and sav­ings and ex­plore your body with beat­ings. To­day the State im­pos­es fines and se­cret beat­ings to ac­com­plish same un­der the pro­tec­tion of the SoE. Has the ter­ror ceased?One can­not con­firm what is the re­al­i­ty since there is no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta on these things.Un­der the SoE there are po­lice/ mil­i­tary beat­ings of cit­i­zens, but thank­ful­ly no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta to back up com­plaints. Rob­bery of cit­i­zens by po­lice/mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta. De­struc­tion of pri­vate prop­er­ty by po­lice/mil­i­tary of­fi­cers, no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta. Fines im­posed up­on cit­i­zens for be­ing out­doors dur­ing cur­few hours, no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta. False ar­rest of cit­i­zens, no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta. False im­pris­on­ment of cit­i­zens, no sta­tis- tical da­ta. Dis­ease ac­qui­si­tion/ spread (vene­re­al, air­borne, con­tact) by SoE in­car­cer­at­ed peo­ple, no sta­tis­ti­cal da­ta."They that give up es­sen­tial lib­er­ty to ob­tain a lit­tle tem­po­rary safe­ty de­serve nei­ther lib­er­ty or safe­ty"-Ben­jamin Franklin.

B Joseph

Via e-mail

No com­mit­ment to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions

This ad­min­is­tra­tion has in­her­it­ed a com­mit­ment from its pre­de­ces­sor to ho­n­our EF­PA con­tracts. It says it won't do that. Peo­ple took a risk it says, and they should pay the price for fail­ure.The same Gov­ern­ment has in­her­it­ed let­ters of com­fort to large banks on be­half of var­i­ous state-owned en­ter­pris­es. Let­ters of com­fort are not guar­an­tees. In fact, they ex­plic­it­ly state that they do not con­sti­tute guar­an­tees, so the Gov­ern­ment has no moral or le­gal oblig­a­tion to these so­phis­ti­cat­ed fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions, all of whom had ac­cess to all rel­e­vant fi­nan­cial da­ta when mak­ing the in­vest­ments. Yet the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance says he will con­vert the­ses let­ters of com­fort to guar­an­tees and will ho­n­our them ful­ly at our ex­pense.What does the min­is­ter have against EF­PA hold­ers? What rea­son does he have for bail­ing out large fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions? There is a pow­er­ful le­gal ba­sis for ho­n­our­ing EF­PA con­tracts if the Gov-ern­ment tru­ly be­lieves in the rule of law. It has even more rea­son by virtue of the ex­plic­it promis­es made by the pre­vi­ous ad­min­is­tra­tion, the Gov­er­nor of the Cen­tral Bank, and their own ap­pointee to the post of man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Cli­co.There is ab­solute­ly no com­mit­ment, le­gal or oth­er­wise, to the fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions who now stand to ben­e­fit to the tune of bil­lions of dol­lars from this bizarre de­ci­sion.While we are be­ing asked as a na­tion to tight­en our col­lec­tive belts-work­ers to ac­cept five per cent salary in­crease over three years, EF­PA savers to for­feit 50 per cent of their hard-earned wealth, and many cit­i­zens fac­ing fi­nan­cial hard­ship-it is galling to see that our Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has de­cid­ed to present some of the wealth­i­est firms in the coun­try with a mul­ti-bil­lion dol­lar wind­fall for no good rea­son.Ei­ther we all ac­cept the pain of eco­nom­ic ad­just­ment or none of us should. Ei­ther we as a na­tion ho­n­our con­tracts as they stand or we don't. Ei­ther we treat small pri­vate in­vestors and large cor­po­rate busi­ness­es equal­ly un­der the law or we lose all cred­i­bil­i­ty as a safe place to in­vest and do busi­ness.

David Walk­er

Via e-mail

Dan­ger­ous prece­dent be­ing set by Govt

The Gov­ern­ment can't win in court, so it de­cides to change the rules of the game. This is a very dan­ger­ous prece­dent be­ing set by a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic Gov­ern­ment. How else can Cli­co pol­i­cy­hold­ers seek re­dress in the court if this av­enue is be­ing blocked by new leg­is­la­tion? Das­tard­ly.If the Gov­ern­ment was con­fi­dent in what it was do­ing, this piece of leg­is­la­tion would nev­er see the light of day. How­ev­er, the writ­ing is on the wall and lit­tle by lit­tle the ju­di­cial process is re­veal­ing the com­plete buf­foon­ery which pass­es as sound and imag­i­na­tive fi­nan­cial so­lu­tions to a rather com­plex and painful sit­u­a­tion.What is to stop this Gov­ern­ment from bring­ing oth­er pieces of leg­is­la­tion to block oth­er cit­i­zens from seek­ing re­dress in the courts con­cern­ing oth­er is­sues?Here we have a bunch of old politi­cians parad­ing as smart politi­cians who are re­al­ly lit­tle boys and girls throw­ing a "hissy-fit" be­cause they are see­ing the los­ing end of many law­suits.This is a cal­cu­lat­ed, me­thod­i­cal, heinous way of in­fring­ing on cit­i­zens' con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. But then again, con­sti­tu­tion­al rights are be­ing rel­e­gat­ed to folk­lore, "nan­cy" sto­ries and works of fic­tion.

Andy Jangeesingh

Via e-mail


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