Dear Min­is­ter:

Our con­tin­u­ous strug­gle here in the Unit­ed King­dom can be equat­ed to plead­ing for free­dom to re­turn home be­fore one of us die. We are once more plead­ing and beg­ging for your as­sis­tance in grant­i­ng us an ex­emp­tion and giv­ing us a date to re­turn to our home­land and coun­try, T&T.

It has been over 100 days we are locked out of our very own coun­try with no valid rea­son.

We are cit­i­zens of T&T just like you and we should be treat­ed fair­ly, equal­ly and as hu­man be­ings not as slaves. The Covid-19 curve has flat­tened and it’s time for us to re­turn to our coun­try now as we kind­ly ask, Min­is­ter, that you stop play­ing pol­i­tics with us and al­low us to re­turn home.

Your gener­ic mo­not­o­nous and rep­e­ti­tious re­sponse to every­one who ap­plies for ex­emp­tion is that: “The bor­ders of T&T are cur­rent­ly closed to both na­tion­als and non-na­tion­als and to con­tin­ue to shel­ter in place.”

This state­ment, how­ev­er, is im­prac­ti­cal and mag­nil­o­quent as it al­ludes to some de­gree of rhetoric fal­la­cy to per­sons in need of as­sis­tance fac­ing a med­ical cri­sis that is con­sid­ered “life or death.”

Many of our cit­i­zens are now with­out funds for it’s a re­al chal­lenge with the high cur­ren­cy ex­change rate, no ac­com­mo­da­tion, food and oth­er sup­plies, the men­tal stress of be­ing strand­ed is by it­self unimag­in­able to any per­son. Some of us are now fac­ing both home­less­ness and star­va­tion in the com­ing days with no help from our gov­ern­ment.

The T&T gov­ern­memt has brought hard­ship and tur­moil to its strand­ed na­tion­als by to­tal­ly ig­nor­ing them, al­low­ing cry­ing in men­tal an­guish and suf­fer­ing, with­out dai­ly meals, med­ical sup­plies, med­ical treat­ment, ac­com­mo­da­tion, fi­nan­cial aid, lack of care pack­ages, poor con­sid­er­a­tion and treat­ment and lack of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty who seems to be thriv­ing on sep­a­rat­ing rather than unit­ing fam­i­lies.

Our plea is a sad but true sto­ry that not on­ly touch­es the heart but sen­si­tis­es and ex­pos­es, the safe and shel­tered like your­self, to see and un­der­stand the ut­ter hell one must en­dure while be­ing strand­ed. The re­al scuf­fle and des­o­la­tion of a strand­ed Tri­ni in the UK that I do not wish, not even for my worst en­e­my, to ex­pe­ri­ence.

Ma­hat­ma Gand­hi once said: “Free­dom is the breath of life.”

But be­ing strand­ed and locked out of your OWN coun­try by an un­car­ing gov­ern­ment due to a pan­dem­ic, de­fies this pow­er­ful state­ment. Free­dom? What free­dom? Right now we do not know what it is to be free.

In fact, we feel like caged, help­less birds. Every day we strug­gle just to re­main calm. Every day we feel pain in every part of our anato­my. It hurt us deeply and we cry un­con­trol­lably. We can’t even pray fer­vent­ly with­out shed­ding tears of lost hope. By now (af­ter 100 days), we feel as if we are ready to have a psych eval­u­a­tion be­cause noth­ing feels nor­mal any­more.

Be­ing alien­at­ed from your own coun­try and gov­ern­ment we vot­ed for to serve us, and our loved ones dri­ves any­one in­sane. But Min­is­ter Young, you may not know this, be­cause you are hap­py and com­fort­able in your home sur­round­ed by your fam­i­ly. This suf­fo­ca­tion we feel is detri­men­tal to our men­tal health.

The Prime Min­is­ter and gov­ern­ment of T&T closed their bor­ders and locked out many of its na­tion­als on March 22 in a most vile and de­lib­er­ate method with very short no­tice for na­tion­als to try to have their re­turn tick­ets reval­i­dat­ed.

Hun­dreds of our cit­i­zens in­clud­ing stu­dents are strand­ed with very lit­tle hope and faith that good sense will pre­vail and that the Gov­ern­ment would man­age a co-or­di­nat­ed repa­tri­a­tion sys­tem in a hu­mane and just man­ner. In fact, what is hap­pen­ing now seems that the gov­ern­ment is op­er­at­ing on ad ho­cism and their judge­ment is bor­der­ing on im­par­tial­i­ty and dis­crim­i­na­tion.

I ask that the Prime Min­is­ter and his Gov­ern­ment think about the strug­gle and men­tal an­guish of the loss of one fam­i­ly mem­ber by death or crit­i­cal ill­ness. How does one be­gin to deal with this tragedy?

Some do not know where their next meal is com­ing from, el­der­ly cit­i­zens are sick and in pain and needs to re­plen­ish their med­ical sup­plies, some have ab­solute­ly no mon­ey, no ac­com­mo­da­tion, no ba­sic house hold ne­ces­si­ties, no med­ical sup­plies while men­tal dis­tress is mount­ing.

But, most im­por­tant­ly, dai­ly sur­vival with­out fam­i­ly sup­port is what is killing us the most.

Oth­er prime min­is­ters and Cari­com gov­ern­ments are all ren­der­ing con­sid­er­a­tion and as­sis­tance to all their strand­ed na­tion­als with ex­emp­tions and repa­tri­a­tion flights by al­low­ing their na­tion­als to re­turn to their coun­try and be re­unit­ed with their loved ones. Why can’t T&T do the same?

While we would like for our gov­ern­ment to be seen as the flagstaff gov­ern­ment that led the rest of the world, not on­ly their valiant and re­sound­ing suc­cess in hav­ing flat­tened the curve, but which al­so reached out to their strand­ed na­tion­als who are in dire need of help and ren­dered as­sis­tance when it was need­ed and brought home their na­tion­als which they fail to do so.

We al­so take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to ask the Prime Min­is­ter, are you not the PM and gov­ern­ment for all of its cit­i­zens, for every creed and race? Why are you treat­ing our loy­al el­der­ly, sick, tax­pay­ers, busi­ness own­ers, stu­dents, cit­i­zens of this coun­try in such an in­hu­mane and ar­ro­gant man­ner?

The gov­ern­ment and health ex­perts are per­pet­u­at­ing ter­ror, suf­fer­ing, hu­mil­i­a­tion and em­bar­rass­ment to our de­cent strand­ed cit­i­zens who are strug­gling just to re­turn home. There seems to be lack of struc­ture and co­or­di­na­tion in this man­age­ment repa­tri­a­tion ef­fort.

Let me vo­calise the point that a strand­ed na­tion­al is a bonafide cit­i­zen with a T&T pass­port and a re­turn tick­et.

Why it is that our tax pay­ing cit­i­zens must now mer­ci­less­ly have to go to the me­dia to beg and cry for help, be­fore the good­ly min­is­ter of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty re­sponds to their plea and grant them ap­proval for re-en­try ex­emp­tion? This shouldn’t be!

There should have been in­stant re­sponse and com­mu­ni­ca­tion to strand­ed cit­i­zens with pro­jec­tions of an ex­pect­ed date of re­turn.

Sci­ence, da­ta and rate of in­fec­tion are im­por­tant fac­tors to con­sid­er but with manda­to­ry quar­an­tine, our step down fa­cil­i­ties can be utilised ful­ly to ac­com­mo­date the na­tion­als.

I ask the mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion: “What is the gov­ern­ment re­al­ly scared of?”

Are they afraid we find out how they are mis­man­ag­ing and mis­ap­pro­pri­at­ing state bud­gets or are they scared we re­al­ly re­alise they can­not man­age a pan­dem­ic un­der any cir­cum­stances? Or is it elec­tion time again… and who lives— good for them, and who dies—poor thing? I’m not sure, I’m just ask­ing on be­half of the hun­dreds of strand­ed na­tion­als.

We take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to call up­on you Mr Prime Min­is­ter, and your pro­tégé, Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Gov­ern­ment to cease the play­ing of games with cit­i­zens’ lives.

For a gov­ern­ment that does not care about its strand­ed cit­i­zens has al­lowed us to lose all faith and con­fi­dence in the lead­er­ship of our coun­try.

It’s time to bring back our cit­i­zens home and to demon­strate some love, com­pas­sion and hu­man­i­ty to our strand­ed na­tion­als who are strug­gling out­side of our bor­ders. Cruise ship work­ers are equal­ly im­por­tant to any­one. Can­cer pa­tients are crit­i­cal and must be giv­en first pref­er­ence, but where is the sched­ule for re­turn? Where is the roadmap that al­lows hope to the rest of cit­i­zens? Ask­ing strand­ed na­tion­als to con­tin­ue to “shel­ter in place” is not a mantra nor mot­to.

The rich­est re­source of any coun­try is its cit­i­zen­ry. Please stop the play­ing of games with the lives of our na­tion­als. They are hu­man be­ings too.

I take this op­por­tu­ni­ty to call up­on our Pres­i­dent of Trinidad & To­ba­go, CARI­COM Chair­man and all NGO’s, re­li­gious lead­ers, gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion MPs, hu­man­i­tar­i­an bod­ies, and at­tor­neys to please lis­ten to our cries and plight. Please high­light the dirge we have to en­dure. Some­one with an io­ta of in­flu­ence and per­sua­sion should be able to hear this cry.

The T&T gov­ern­ment has brought a lot of its strand­ed cit­i­zens to cry blood in their tears. The strug­gle and the cry of the strand­ed cit­i­zens is re­al. As we con­clude, we re­fer us back to what Ghan­di said; re­mind­ing us about my lost free­dom and lasts breaths of life.

I ask of you to let this sink in (even if you have to read it twice)—“Some­one asked me, if I were strand­ed on a de­sert­ed is­land what book would I bring…?

I an­swered, How to Build a Boat.” —Steven Wright

Strand­ed Cit­i­zens of Trinidad & To­ba­go in the Unit­ed King­dom.

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