Melis­sa Doughty

Two min­is­ters, in­clud­ing the pres­i­dent of the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion (IRO) of T&T, have called on cit­i­zens of the coun­try not to con­demn their com­pa­tri­ots, say­ing the coun­try needs heal­ing.Chap­lain for the mil­i­tary, Canon Ma­jor John Ro­him, called on cit­i­zens not to con­demn the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces and to, in­stead, of­fer a word of com­men­da­tion to them.

IRO pres­i­dent Har­ryper­sad Ma­haraj al­so called on cit­i­zens to "not on­ly con­demn and crit­i­cise" but did not specif­i­cal­ly state who should not be con­demned. Both men were speak­ing on Sun­day at an in­ter-faith ser­vice held at Queen's Hall, St Ann's, in mem­o­ry of of­fi­cers (po­lice­men, mem­bers of the De­fence Force, fire of­fi­cers among oth­ers) who have died over the last decade.The Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Of­fi­cers Foun­da­tion head­ed by Cur­tis Belford or­gan­ised the ser­vice.

Dur­ing the ser­vice, a video pre­sen­ta­tion was shown high­light­ing the of­fi­cers who had died be­tween 2001-2012, as well as pay­ing trib­ute to the six of­fi­cers who died in the 1988 Camp Omega bush fire.Say­ing what he was about to say was not tied with re­cent head­lines, Ma­haraj be­gan his clos­ing prayer by call­ing on the coun­try not to con­demn. He said his state­ments were for the coun­try and not on­ly for the of­fi­cers gath­ered at Queen's Hall.

"I am call­ing up­on T&T, do not on­ly con­demn and crit­i­cise. We need a heal­ing in this land," he said.Us­ing bib­li­cal scrip­ture, Ma­haraj said man did not live by bread alone. He called on of­fi­cers to be more ac­tive and proac­tive. He said the of­fi­cers missed a "won­der­ful op­por­tu­ni­ty to win the heart of the coun­try" a cou­ple of days ago. He said when things were de­layed, that is when a neg­a­tive im­age de­vel­ops."Where are the words of com­pas­sion and love? Two wrongs do not make a right..." Ma­haraj added.

His com­ment, how­ev­er, seemed to be in ref­er­ence of the po­lice's fail­ure to act swift­ly in the Sea Lots ac­ci­dent which claimed the lives of Haydee Paul and her daugh­ters and in­jured three oth­ers. Over a month had passed and po­lice had failed to lay any charges in the mat­ter, prompt­ing Sea Lots res­i­dents to claim their fears of a cov­er up were jus­ti­fied. Even­tu­al­ly, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions stepped in last week and even­tu­al­ly or­dered the cops to charge their col­league, PC Sher­win Leg­ere, in the mat­ter.

Ro­him ques­tioned how of­fi­cers felt when, he said, "all they get is con­dem­na­tion and crit­i­cism." He added that it was al­so good to of­fer words of com­men­da­tion.Ro­him said peo­ple need­ed to learn to recog­nise the good in each oth­er and not the ug­li­ness.He added, how­ev­er, that "be­cause of jeal­ousy we are de­stroy­ing our­selves.""Use the eyes of God when deal­ing with each oth­er...Use the heart of God when deal­ing with each oth­er...Use the hand of God when deal­ing with each oth­er," he said.

He al­so ques­tioned how so­ci­ety val­ues the of­fi­cers."On­ly when we need po­lice, we recog­nise how im­por­tant they are," he said.He called on peo­ple to be more ap­pre­cia­tive of the of­fi­cers.In de­liv­er­ing the Hin­du prayer, pun­dit Vish­nu Nar­ine quot­ed a pop­u­lar line from Lord John Ac­ton: "Pow­er cor­rupts and ab­solute pow­er cor­rupts ab­solute­ly."

Prayers were of­fered from all ma­jor faiths (Mus­lim, Chris­t­ian and Hin­du). Spir­i­tu­al Bap­tist Arch­bish­op and for­mer sen­a­tor Bar­bara Gray-Burke de­liv­ered the Chris­t­ian prayer.The T&T De­fence Force Steel Or­ches­tra, Princess Priya Dance Group, Day Break As­sem­bly Choir and Al-Faisaliyyah Nasheed Group of­fered de­vo­tion­al en­ter­tain­ment.