As an ordinary citizen who does not hold nor has ever held a party card, I too joined the march to the President's house on Tuesday 18th Sep. I therefore found it rather short-sighted of the naysayers who tried to suggest that the participants of the march either had political agendas or were insignificant in some way.
Today, I feel even more empowered to stand up, speak up and march again on issues of national nature if and when the situation warrants. However, on the heels of the Prime Minister's utterances to the National Community on the Sect 34 issue, I am disappointed and feel further slighted.
The PM's reaction which now seems to have been deemed urgent only as a consequence of the persistent and very potent public outcry-contrary to the AG's, the Housing Minister's and the National Security Minister's ramblings, was the least that was owed to the public! In fact, it fell woefully short on perhaps what may be considered to be a most critical factor of the issue-that of the abysmal failure of the office of the AG in its fiduciary responsibility before and after the fact.
I suspect that while the PM's speech bears some tones and sentiments of positions articulated by the three (above-named) ministers, there is a sense that no simple lullaby would have put this 'dragon' back to sleep and the PM was well advised to not be dismissive since it would be to her government's peril.
Like a river that will find its way to the ocean in spite of the obstacles, the not-soon-enough apology and sacking is likely a case of too little, too late. The people of Trinidad and Tobago are not backing down on any short change on this issue. It may also be realistic to say that they have 'tasted the blood of victory' in this as well as the far too many other blunders of this administration, including the recalling of the now infamous ambassador, the recalling of the St James traffic plan, the repealing of Section 34, the firing of Volney and so on.
I have no doubt that the Government will learn from this latest debacle, however, what I'm not sure about, is that they won't pull even more daring stunts once there is motive and opportunity! This is not the first of such missteps we recall-remember Reshmi? We are actually trying to forget but it seems they just won't let us and this latest fiasco seems to be confirming what now appears to be endemic to the present administration.
It is even more amazing therefore that the Government keeps taking credit in a somewhat puzzling sense of accomplishment, creating opportunities to pat themselves on the back and revelling in their now annual political-victory celebrations! If we can find any good news in this it is that they (the government) continue to keep us as citizens on our toes, so to speak, but at some point, we need to feel reasonably confident that we can trust the office holders to function with integrity with or without closed circuit surveillance. This unfortunately is not the case at present and we are not prepared to just "let's move on."
The power brokers behind the throne are way too arrogant and do not deserve the positions they still hold! Now that the PM has publicly conceded that there was subterfuge, the AG, the National Security Minister the Housing Minister must alo be sent packing!
The much-touted collective responsibility demands that every one of them currently occupying the seats of admittedly failed good governance must go too, especially those who not only 'boldfacedly' condemned the well-justified outcry but who also directly or indirectly attempted to dupe the population into believing that either no wrong was committed or, everyone who was supposed to know about it knew or, who for reasons yet to be understood, sat and voted against repealing the act!
This nation owes heartfelt thanks to Dr the Honourable Keith Rowley. One can but only imagine what the state of the nation would have been had he not determined to take and make issue with this sordid affair. Who knows, Ish and Steve may have already assumed new identities and set off on a cruise to some far-off never-land that has no extradition treaty arrangement while, in spite of the proclamation, the thousands of others languishing in jail may very well continue to languish.
Debra J Johnson
via e-mail