The furore spurred by Hilton Sandy's in­dis­cre­tion con­cern­ing shiploads of Cal­cut­tans must not be al­lowed to di­vert us more than it al­ready has, for what he said was very top­i­cal and time­ly. His forced apol­o­gy is un­ac­cept­able. Over the years, To­ba­go's make­up has changed: it has moved from be­ing 90 per cent pop­u­lat­ed by African de­scen­dants to close to 70 per cent, I am told.

Trend seems ir­re­versible. If we refuse to ac­knowl­edge this, we may as well go live in Fools' Par­adise for we'd nev­er be able to think or con­duct our­selves log­i­cal­ly about the im­pact of race on any To­ba­go elec­tion.

For Sandy to be­come an as­sem­bly­man and Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary, he was re­quired to take oaths of of­fice. Each po­si­tion had its unique pledge. Those who breach their oaths face harsh con­se­quences. Sandy's apol­o­gy can­not be en­ter­tained with­out him do­ing enough penance to make amends; his state­ments were too crip­pling. The PNM is a par­ty renowned for its moral and spir­i­tu­al val­ues.

To main­tain that im­age, Sandy must im­me­di­ate­ly re­sign from the THA and with­draw his can­di­da­cy for clear­ly he holds In­do-To­bag­o­ni­ans and In­do-Trinida­di­ans in to­tal con­tempt. If he re­fus­es, he might as well dump a truck­load of Rox­bor­ough sand in my par­ty's rice, lead­ing to it be­ing at­tacked with full force and floored for good by a young and vi­brant Part­ner­ship that hasn't yet reached its prime.

That would grieve me great­ly, since the Sandys are my rel­a­tives. Don't feel of­fend­ed, Cousin Hilton! Please re­sign!

Oc­tavia Crichlow

San­gre Grande