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Saturday, July 26, 2025

Activist calls for global action against T&T

by

20140520

As La Brea res­i­dents lined road­ways to protest the con­tin­ued ef­fects of last De­cem­ber's oil spill, Green­peace In­ter­na­tion­al ac­tivist Mike Singh called for an in­ter­na­tion­al move­ment against T&T over the en­vi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter.Ac­com­pa­nied by the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union on Mon­day, Singh met with La Brea res­i­dents and mem­bers of the High­way Re-route Move­ment (HRM) at Cof­fee Beach, where oil-stained rock and left­over oil booms re­main an eye­sore.

De­spite claims that res­i­dents still suf­fer from rash­es, nau­sea, di­ar­rhoea and chest pains, vis­i­tors to Queen's Beach and Carat Shed beach con­tin­ue to swim in the wa­ter.Walk­ing through the area, Singh said, "This is a crime be­ing per­pe­trat­ed by Trinida­di­ans against Trinida­di­ans. This has noth­ing to do with pol­i­tics, this has noth­ing to do with race, colour, creed or class. This has to do with the ba­sic as­sault on the en­vi­ron­men­tal rights of poor peo­ple, who use the sea for their dai­ly sus­te­nance and for their dai­ly sur­vival."

He said if Petrotrin were un­der sanc­tion by the US En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion Agency (EPA), there would have been grave con­se­quences. How­ev­er, be­cause Petrotrin and the in­ves­ti­gat­ing agen­cies were gov­ern­ment en­ti­ties, he said, there was un­like­ly to be any fair com­pen­sa­tion. He said Petrotrin's board should be re­placed, just as the board of di­rec­tors at First Cit­i­zens had been.

"I am dumb­struck by the fact that so many thou­sands of bar­rels of oil con­tin­u­ous­ly leaked in­to this Gulf of Paria, which is not on­ly Trinidad's wa­ter, but al­so Venezuela's. The cur­rents go south, so we are al­so con­cerned about the long-term im­pli­ca­tion of this ma­rine dam­age for the wa­ters of north-west­ern Guyana.

"What has gone on here would not be per­mit­ted in any self-re­spect­ing so­ci­ety. In the Unit­ed States, the EPA would have al­ready shut down Petrotrin and the lead­ers of Petrotrin would have been ar­rest­ed and thrown in­to some dark dun­geon some­where."Be­cause the per­pe­tra­tors of this crime against the en­vi­ron­ment are those who rule, [and] the lead­ers of jus­tice are one and the same, I have no con­fi­dence that you're go­ing to get a fair le­gal re­dress in the courts of this coun­try.

"This, based on what I have seen, based on what I have read, based on what has been shared with me, con­sti­tutes a le­git­i­mate cause for an in­ter­na­tion­al en­vi­ron­men­tal move­ment against this coun­try. Be­cause it is not on­ly re­strict­ed to your wa­ters, it has gone in­ter­na­tion­al­ly in­to the gulf and as such, even Venezuela can be­come par­ty to any po­ten­tial in­ter­na­tion­al lit­i­ga­tion."Singh ar­rived in T&T on Sun­day night at the in­vi­ta­tion of lo­cal Green­peace rep­re­sen­ta­tive Ju­dith de Ver­teuil. His trip was spon­sored by the OW­TU.

Singh said he will em­bark on a fact-find­ing mis­sion, as the ac­tivist group is con­sid­er­ing launch­ing a chap­ter in T&T. Dur­ing his sev­en-day vis­it, he is ex­pect­ed to meet with those af­fect­ed by the oil spill, with the HRM over the Debe to Mon De­sir leg of the San Fer­nan­do to Point Fortin High­way, and with the Save Our Green Space Com­mit­tee (SOGSC) in re­la­tion to the Or­ange Grove Sa­van­nah in Tacarigua.

He said since De­cem­ber 17, he had cat­a­logued all lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al ar­ti­cles on the oil spill, which he lat­er pre­sent­ed to Green­peace In­ter­na­tion­al ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor Ku­mi Naidoo. He al­so an­nounced that he will par­tic­i­pate in the Joint Trade Union Move­ment's "Moth­er of All March­es" on Fri­day.

Ro­get re­peats: It's a cov­er-up

De­scrib­ing the oil spill as a tragedy of enor­mous pro­por­tions, OW­TU pres­i­dent gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get said Petrotrin's board and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Kevin Ram­nar­ine were be­ing sup­port­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in triv­i­al­is­ing the dis­as­ter."There is cov­er-up in­volved sim­ply be­cause there are peo­ple in high places who want­ed to pro­tect them­selves."This thing goes right up to the min­is­ter and cer­tain­ly, it is cor­rect to say the board is cul­pa­ble and the se­nior man­age­ment is cul­pa­ble in that re­gard," Ro­get said.

Ro­get said an un­speak­able lev­el of dis­re­spect was be­ing met­ed out to La Brea res­i­dents.Lead­ing the plac­ard protest yes­ter­day by the La Brea En­vi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tors Or­gan­i­sa­tion, La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey said Petrotrin and the Gov­ern­ment had been tardy in com­pen­sat­ing oil-spill vic­tims.

He said peo­ple in the area still com­plain about ail­ments and are call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to im­ple­ment a health pro­gramme to mon­i­tor the long-term health ef­fects caused by ex­po­sure.


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