Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

While the Gov­ern­ment has re­mained mum on the Joint Trade Union Move­ment’s (JTUM) sup­port for yes­ter­day’s “Zone of Peace” ral­ly, the Op­po­si­tion com­mend­ed the union’s stance for peace in the coun­try.

“And not al­lowed it­self to be boxed in by the Gov­ern­ment’s an­ti-Cari­com pos­ture,” said Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip Mar­vin Gon­za­les yes­ter­day.

Sup­port al­so came from Venezuela for yes­ter­day’s peace ral­ly at Wood­ford Square, Port of Spain.

JTUM is head­ed by OW­TU leader An­cel Ro­get. The OW­TU is part of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress Gov­ern­ment’s Coali­tion of In­ter­ests, along with the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, the Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP), the Pub­lic Ser­vices As­so­ci­a­tion, and the LOVE Par­ty.

Last Fri­day, a re­lease from OW­TU Ed­u­ca­tion/Re­search/Me­dia Of­fi­cer Sta­cy Her­bert stat­ed that JTUM sup­port­ed yes­ter­day’s vig­il for peace and the need for peace in the re­gion.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar did not re­spond to Guardian Me­dia’s What­sApp ques­tions on the ral­ly, giv­en Trinidad and To­ba­go’s po­si­tion at the re­cent Cari­com meet­ing, when T&T re­served its stance as re­gion­al lead­ers called for the Caribbean to be de­clared a Zone of Peace. The Prime Min­is­ter al­so did not re­ply to ques­tions about JTUM’s sup­port for the ini­tia­tive.

How­ev­er, oth­er Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, who re­spond­ed but did not want to be named, said there was no is­sue with JTUM’s sup­port for the vig­il. “It’s a free coun­try; every­one wants peace. But there’s no war,” they added, cit­ing re­cent US Gov­ern­ment state­ments cast­ing doubt on any plans to strike Venezuela.

They said cit­i­zens should fo­cus on the pos­i­tive de­vel­op­ments in T&T that in­spire con­fi­dence in the fu­ture, with “Your Gov­ern­ment work­ing for you and con­scious of your safe­ty.”

But Gon­za­les said, “I’m hap­py JTUM hasn’t al­lowed it­self to be boxed in by the UNC’s reck­less and ir­re­spon­si­ble pol­i­cy of an­ti-Cari­com pos­ture on this mat­ter, and JTUM has de­cid­ed to join their voic­es in re­it­er­at­ing that the Caribbean re­gion is a Zone of Peace in this world and must be pre­served as such in or­der to pro­tect the col­lec­tive well-be­ing now — and for the fu­ture of the world and every­one’s chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.”

“Stand­ing firm for a Zone of Peace is a stance to but­tress the re­gion’s sur­vival when there are shift­ing glob­al sands and sta­bil­i­ty and calm are need­ed. It’s part of the re­gion and hemi­sphere’s mantra to se­cure the fu­ture for its peo­ples — and to re­in­force world peace.”

Gon­za­les, who said the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment had oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties planned yes­ter­day, said he hoped ral­ly at­ten­dees would have demon­strat­ed their dis­gust against “the Prime Min­is­ter and Gov­ern­ment for bring­ing T&T and the re­gion in­to the mid­dle of a mil­i­tary con­flict that will not and can­not be in our best in­ter­ests.”

“JTUM and all oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions — in­clud­ing church­es and re­li­gious or­gan­i­sa­tions — who care about their coun­try must con­tin­ue stand­ing up against this reck­less lead­er­ship that is pre­pared to en­gage in a dan­ger­ous gam­ble of our diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions.”

Venezuela sup­ports

peace ral­ly

Mean­while, sup­port for yes­ter­day’s ral­ly came from se­nior Cara­cas of­fi­cials.

They told Guardian Me­dia, “Any­thing in T&T or any­where else in the world that stands for peace we ab­solute­ly ap­plaud and sup­port, even if our rep­re­sen­ta­tives were not there phys­i­cal­ly, but Venezuela was there in spir­it. From the dis­tance, we give all our sol­i­dar­i­ty and sup­port to any kind of ral­ly that seeks peace. That’s ab­solute­ly our blue­print for any­thing that we do for the con­ser­va­tion of peace, par­tic­u­lar­ly for the Latin Amer­i­can and Caribbean re­gion be­ing a zone of peace. It is the most im­por­tant goal we pur­sue and in­tend to con­tin­ue ap­proach­ing.”

They added, “In times of sol­i­dar­i­ty, we sup­port any kind of ac­tiv­i­ty con­cern­ing peace and against war, ag­gres­sion, colo­nial­ism, neo-colo­nial­ism, im­pe­ri­al­ism, and neo-lib­er­al­i­sa­tion. All those vices com­ing from the Unit­ed States we ful­ly re­ject, and we sup­port any ac­tiv­i­ty that re­jects such ac­tions that seek con­tin­u­a­tion of the colo­nial dom­i­na­tion of our re­gion.”

Venezue­lan of­fi­cials said it was im­pos­si­ble for JTUM and the unions to con­tin­ue be­ing part of the Gov­ern­ment. “It’s like eat­ing ice cream and say­ing you’re los­ing weight. If you, as a Gov­ern­ment, al­low the US to run your for­eign pol­i­cy and every­thing, un­apolo­get­i­cal­ly and open­ly, as now, and you let them tell you what to do or not and ma­nip­u­late your for­eign re­la­tions, at some point, there will be as­pects that will col­lide with the in­ter­ests of your labour move­ment. There’s ab­solute­ly no way that kind of al­liance can sus­tain to­geth­er with over-re­liance on the US.”