Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Pres­by­ter­ian min­is­ter Rev Daniel Teelucks­ingh yes­ter­day called for an end to the strike at Trinidad Ce­ment Lim­it­ed. He warned that a shut­down of the lo­cal econ­o­my will crip­ple the work­ing class. In his Good Fri­day ser­mon at St Charles Pres­by­ter­ian Church, Ch­agua­nas, Teelucks­ingh, a for­mer in­de­pen­dent sen­a­tor, blamed self­ish rulers for trig­ger­ing vi­o­lence among cit­i­zens.

"The pro­tract­ed labour un­rest at TCL is cre­at­ing a kind of vi­o­lence. There may be no guns but it is a kind of vi­o­lence that will hurt the econ­o­my," he said. "Enough of try­ing to shut down the coun­try. You try it and see what will hap­pen. It will not af­fect those who have mon­ey. They are well off. It is the un­der­class who will suf­fer."

Rev Teelucks­ingh ac­cused elect­ed gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials of en­gag­ing in triv­ial dis­cord in­stead of run­ning the coun­try. He told the con­gre­ga­tion which in­clud­ed Ch­agua­nas May­or Or­lan­do Nages­sar: "The lead­ers of this coun­try are think­ing more about them­selves. They are fight­ing for po­lit­i­cal turf on any po­lit­i­cal side what­so­ev­er."

He added: "Peo­ple who are elect­ed to gov­ern our af­fairs with­in re­cent times are not us­ing most of their skills and wis­dom to lead the peo­ple of this coun­try. Most of their skills and wis­dom have been spent on triv­ial is­sues as to who gets the li­on's share of the po­lit­i­cal pie and who gets the crumbs."

He said this self­ish style of lead­er­ship is de­stroy­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go. "This cre­ates a kind of vi­o­lence where cit­i­zens feel a sense of ne­glect. That is vi­o­lence against the poor. "The pow­er play at a cer­tain lev­el cre­ates its own kind of neg­a­tive fall­out and it cre­ates a par­tic­u­lar kind of vi­o­lence that is more dead­ly than mis­siles and bombs. It may be gun-free but it is dead­ly," Teelucks­ingh warned.

"The world is in a mess be­cause of vi­o­lence. We have ir­re­spon­si­ble ex­ploita­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment, land and sea re­sources," he said. Ac­cord­ing to Teelucks­ingh, Je­sus Christ un­der­stood the ex­tent of vi­o­lence among hu­man­i­ty when he died on the cross at Cal­vary.

"Je­sus is say­ing to the world, enough of this, enough of cru­el­ty, spite and hate for one an­oth­er. Enough of gun-re­lat­ed vi­o­lence in T&T," he said.