Sat Ma­haraj

"Let me tell you a lit­tle bit first about our main char­ac­ter, John H O'Hal­lo­ran. John­ny O, as he was fa­mil­iar­ly called, was a pow­er­ful fig­ure in the PNM, which was a par­ty that ruled T&T for 30 un­in­ter­rupt­ed years. He was one of the few white mem­bers of the Cab­i­net. He was of Irish de­scent, a ladies' man if ever there was one. A flam­boy­ant fig­ure who al­ways wore white suits and drove large Amer­i­can cars.

"He was al­so known as the pre-em­i­nent po­lit­i­cal fix­er on the is­land, a man who had the ear of the then Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams. Noth­ing sig­nif­i­cant ever seemed to hap­pen with­out John­ny O's in­volve­ment or ap­proval, which led to his oth­er nick­name-Mr Ten Per Cent.

"I had been the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in the PNM from 1976 but I re­tired at the end of my term in 1981, frus­trat­ed over what I be­lieved were de­lib­er­ate at­tempts to stop me in­ves­ti­gat­ing cor­rup­tion. I had kept files from those days, which I hand­ed over to Bob Lindquist."

The above quote is from Sel­wyn Richard­son, who was At­tor­ney Gen­er­al of the PNM when Dr Er­ic Williams, whom some like to name "fa­ther of the na­tion," was the Prime Min­is­ter of T&T. Richard­son re­signed from the PNM and was sub­se­quent­ly mur­dered at his home in the sub­urbs of Port-of-Spain while putting out house­hold garbage in a rub­bish bin.

The mur­der of Richard­son drew na­tion­al out­rage. Sus­pi­cion was di­rect­ed to some sup­port­ers of Prime Min­is­ter Er­ic Williams who ap­par­ent­ly were con­cerned about Richard­son's PNM po­lit­i­cal ex­pos­es. Some of us al­so see this killing of Richard­son, which re­mains un­solved, as the first po­lit­i­cal mur­der in Trinidad and To­ba­go.

This is a sea­son of height­ened po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty, when the PP gov­ern­ment is be­ing tar­get­ed by a hand­ful of PNM op­po­si­tion MPs to­geth­er with some me­dia hous­es, trade-union ac­tivists and oth­ers op­posed to Kam­la's gov­ern­ment. It is use­ful to un­der­stand how the PNM, and more es­pe­cial­ly its found­ing Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams, dealt with le­git­i­mate op­po­si­tion.

His­to­ry will show that not on­ly le­git­i­mate po­lit­i­cal op­po­si­tion was sti­fled but that the trade-union move­ment could not ex­press its views.

An­cel Ro­get, pres­i­dent gen­er­al of the Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union, is free to crit­i­cise the present ad­min­is­tra­tion, use the me­dia to get across the views of his union and to ap­pear on any plat­form with the PNM op­po­si­tion. There is ab­solute­ly no fear of be­ing tar­get­ed by the Gov­ern­ment and its high-pro­file Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Jack Warn­er.

But one of his pre­de­ces­sors, George Weekes, was not so for­tu­nate un­der Er­ic Williams' PNM gov­ern­ment in 1970. Weekes, to­geth­er with dozens of po­lit­i­cal ac­tivists, was round­ed up and im­pris­oned on Nel­son Is­land. They were de­nied their con­sti­tu­tion­al rights, which are en­shrined in de­mo­c­ra­t­ic T&T.

Bas­deo Pan­day, who sub­se­quent­ly be­came Prime Min­is­ter of Trinidad and To­ba­go, had to scam­per in San Fer­nan­do when the po­lice of Er­ic Williams charged a protest­ing num­ber of work­ers from the All Trinidad Sug­ar Es­tates and Fac­to­ry work­ers Trade Union. Bas­deo Pan­day was the union's pres­i­dent gen­er­al.

Even Raf­fique Shah, now a news­pa­per colum­nist and crit­ic of the PP Gov­ern­ment, was jailed for trea­son and tried by Williams' PNM gov­ern­ment. Shah was tried and set free by a spe­cial court. When Jack Warn­er cried out that there was po­lit­i­cal bias com­ing from cer­tain me­dia hous­es, he was ac­cused of at­tempt­ing to sup­press free speech and press free­dom.

But at no time did Warn­er, who is the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, at­tempt to do what Er­ic Williams and the PNM did in 1970. Over the last few days, we have no­ticed changes in the way some of the me­dia hous­es now present their news. We find it more bal­anced.

The leader of the Op­po­si­tion, Kei­th Row­ley, is re­port­ed to have re­fused to speak to a news­pa­per that was seek­ing post-bud­get com­ments. The Leader of the Op­po­si­tion did not sub­ject him­self to an in­ter­view with the Ex­press news­pa­per. It was re­port­ed on Oc­to­ber 2, and the head­line read: "Row­ley turns down Ex­press in­ter­view."

Mr Warn­er was con­demned be­cause he point­ed out that one news­pa­per pre­tends that Trinidad and To­ba­go seems to be lo­cat­ed North of the Ca­roni Riv­er. In its col­umn head­ed "To­day's big ques­tion," the over­whelm­ing ma­jor­i­ty of head­shots and com­ments were from peo­ple in Port-of-Spain, where the news­pa­per's of­fices are lo­cat­ed.

It is with plea­sure we note in the same pa­per of Oc­to­ber 2 that the head­shots of the com­men­ta­tors came from Gas­par­il­lo, Re­form, South Oropouche, Mara­bel­la, Princes Town, Port-of-Spain, Ch­agua­nas, Mor­vant, San­gre Grande and San Juan.

The Ma­ha Sab­ha is pleased that our me­dia hous­es are re­spond­ing to le­git­i­mate crit­i­cism rather than wait­ing for a min­is­ter or prime min­is­ter to re­act like one for­mer PNM prime min­is­ter who in­vad­ed the news­room of a ra­dio sta­tion.