Sat Ma­haraj

Jour­nal­ist George Al­leyne, a colum­nist at­tached to the News­day news­pa­per, on Oc­to­ber 10 wrote an ar­ti­cle that car­ried the head­line "Dr Er­ic Williams saved Ca­roni."

It read: "While the na­tion's first Prime Min­is­ter, Dr Er­ic Williams, made sev­er­al out­stand­ing con­tri­bu­tions to the eco­nom­ic and so­cial de­vel­op­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go, whether in the area of ed­u­ca­tion, the en­er­gy sec­tor, es­tab­lish­ing low-cost trans­port through the fu­el sub­sidy, the ex­pan­sion of med­ical fa­cil­i­ties, the es­tab­lish­ment of in­dus­tri­al es­tates, the cre­at­ing of in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, the ac­qui­si­tion of the Bank of Lon­don and Mon­tre­al or al­le­vi­at­ing hous­ing prob­lems, one of the great­est was the 1975 ac­qui­si­tion of Ca­roni Ltd which saved thou­sands of jobs and laid the ground­work for the up­ward mo­bil­i­ty of sug­ar work­ers and their chil­dren."

Jour­nal­ist Al­leyne tried to be kind to for­mer PNM Prime Min­is­ter Williams with these words: "When the British com­pa­ny Tate and Lyle de­cid­ed to close down Ca­roni's sug­ar es­tates and fac­to­ries be­cause it found them un­eco­nom­ic to con­tin­ue op­er­at­ing, Dr Er­ic Williams had to act swift­ly as clo­sure of Ca­roni would have meant mas­sive so­cial dis­lo­ca­tion."

The truth about Ca­roni Ltd must be told not through the per­spec­tive of a jour­nal­ist who seems to have an at­ti­tude of "PNM till I dead." The truth about Ca­roni Ltd is that un­der Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's Patrick Man­ning, Ca­roni Ltd was un­cer­e­mo­ni­ous­ly closed down and 10,000 sug­ar work­ers from cen­tral Trinidad were placed on the bread­line. More ac­cu­rate­ly, they were put on the roti-line.

This is how Al­leyne ex­plains this clo­sure: "Un­for­tu­nate­ly, a few years ago re­sult­ing from a World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion rul­ing for­bid­ding the pref­er­en­tial en­try quo­ta sys­tem, the Eu­ro­pean Union had to end its pur­chase of sug­ar from Trinidad and To­ba­go putting an end to Dr Williams' far-sight­ed move."

As we sur­vey cane sug­ar across the world, we must con­clude that the sug­ar cane is the one of the most ver­sa­tile plants cre­at­ed by na­ture. It is the one crop that brought our African broth­ers from across the At­lantic to Trinidad. And it is this same plant that brought over 140,000 in­den­tured im­mi­grants from In­dia to work it.

An­thro­pol­o­gist Dr Ku­mar Ma­habir, in his book Med­i­c­i­nal and Ed­i­ble plants, de­scribes the cane as hav­ing orig­i­nat­ed in In­dia and was cul­ti­vat­ed "prob­a­bly in the first mil­len­ni­um BC and the man­u­fac­ture of sug­ar was first done there (Purse 1981: 220)."

Ma­habir points to the us­es of the sug­ar­cane: "makes sug­ar, (brown and gran­u­lat­ed), mo­lasses, bagasse and rum. Cane tops, a feed to live­stock. Bagasse is used in the man­u­fac­ture of pa­per, plas­tics, fu­el, cat­tle food and some build­ing ma­te­ri­als like chip board and slices of cane are used as an in­gre­di­ent in prasad (Hin­du con­se­crat­ed food)."

Were it not for the sug­ar cane, nei­ther I nor George Al­leyne would be in Trinidad and To­ba­go, one of the few ar­eas of this world where God has blessed us with His own hands. But it took a Patrick Man­ning to change the course of our his­to­ry and de­ny us all the ben­e­fits that are now de­rived from the hum­ble sug­ar cane.

To­day Brazil is an­nu­al­ly ex­pand­ing its acreage un­der sug­ar cane cul­ti­va­tion. Its sug­ar cane pro­duces cane sug­ar that did not need a Eu­ro­pean mar­ket for sur­vival. Mo­lasses, al­co­hol, hard board from bagasse, cat­tle feed, and fu­el that is used to dri­ve mo­tor ve­hi­cles with­out pol­lut­ing the at­mos­phere are de­rived from this hum­ble plant. It is a source of high rev­enue for coun­tries like Brazil, In­dia and those in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca.

We are in­formed that even Ugan­da, which un­der Idi Amin ex­pelled all In­di­ans and ex­pro­pri­at­ed their sug­ar fac­to­ries and plan­ta­tions, is now invit­ing them back to re­sus­ci­tate their sug­ar in­dus­try. Guyana is a land that was laughed at by some of our politi­cians in the past. It was re­ferred to as the "mud-land" and its peo­ple as "mud­lan­ders."

In 1956 our rice in­dus­try sup­plied a large per­cent­age of lo­cal con­sump­tion. But our PNM politi­cians de­cid­ed that it was cheap­er to buy rice from Guyana than to grow the rice lo­cal­ly. To­day we trav­el cap-in-hand to Guyana to seek their sup­port in food pro­duc­tion.

We must now ne­go­ti­ate and beg the peo­ple of Guyana for per­mis­sion to use their lands and wa­ter re­sources to feed the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go. This is the lega­cy of the politi­cians of the past. This is the lega­cy of Er­ic Williams and Patrick Man­ning, PNM prime min­is­ters who left us at the mer­cy of oth­er coun­tries to sup­ply food for our peo­ple.

When jour­nal­ists res­ur­rect the dead, they must for his­tor­i­cal pur­pos­es write not on­ly about the suc­cess­es of that politi­cian who once led us, they must al­so write about the mis­takes by a po­lit­i­cal leader and the cor­rup­tions un­der his watch. They must write about John­ny O' Hal­lo­ran, Pre­vatt, the gas sta­tion rack­ets and the Lock Joint feed­ing fren­zy.

Sat­narayan Ma­haraj

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al

Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha