Mick­ela Pan­day

On Sep­tem­ber 6, I vis­it­ed fish­ing vil­lages of the south­west­ern penin­su­la. I spoke to fish­er­men who were deeply wor­ried about be­ing caught in the mid­dle of the grow­ing ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela. They told me they were afraid their small fish­ing boats could be mis­tak­en for some­thing else, that one wrong move could cost them their lives. They felt alone and aban­doned.

Six weeks lat­er, re­ports sur­faced in­ter­na­tion­al­ly that a Unit­ed States mil­i­tary strike de­stroyed an­oth­er pirogue off the coast of Venezuela, this time it is be­ing claimed that two Trinida­di­ans may have been on that ves­sel. Yet, even as the news has been car­ried across the world, our own Gov­ern­ment’s re­sponse has been one of con­fu­sion and si­lence.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, when asked to com­ment, de­clined to ad­dress the re­port­ed deaths. In­stead, she stood by her pre­vi­ous state­ment that “drug traf­fick­ers should all be killed vi­o­lent­ly”. That re­mark, reck­less at the time, now car­ries even graver im­pli­ca­tions. Is the Prime Min­is­ter ac­cept­ing the claims of for­eign gov­ern­ment with­out first seek­ing to ver­i­fy the facts sur­round­ing the deaths of two of its cit­i­zens? Be­cause, when a leader speaks with­out ev­i­dence or due process, it sends a dan­ger­ous sig­nal, that the lives of our cit­i­zens are ex­pend­able.

Fol­low­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s, the Prime Min­is­ter and De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge both re­fused me­dia re­quests for in­ter­views, leav­ing the pub­lic with­out ex­pla­na­tion. Mean­while, For­eign Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers told the Ex­press news­pa­per that there was “no ev­i­dence” to sug­gest any Trinida­di­ans were on the ves­sel, and ad­vised the fam­i­lies of the miss­ing men to file po­lice re­ports. He added, “At this junc­ture we have no ev­i­dence as to any­body who was on that boat. There has been no re­port­ed sur­fac­ing of bod­ies.”

That is the sum to­tal of what we have been told at the time of writ­ing this col­umn.

For a gov­ern­ment that promised trans­paren­cy, this si­lence is un­ac­cept­able. When re­ports arise that our cit­i­zens may have lost their lives in such se­ri­ous cir­cum­stance the Gov­ern­ment’s first du­ty is to seek the truth and com­mu­ni­cate clear­ly with the na­tion. What we need is not de­fen­sive­ness or si­lence, but gov­er­nance guid­ed by com­pas­sion and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

If this Gov­ern­ment tru­ly wish­es to do bet­ter than its pre­de­ces­sor, it must em­brace trans­paren­cy and ac­count­abil­i­ty as dai­ly prac­tice, not as slo­gans. Those in gov­er­nance must be ac­ces­si­ble to the peo­ple and they must com­mu­ni­cate truth­ful­ly so that cit­i­zens are not left to fill in the blanks with spec­u­la­tion or fear.

The fish­er­men I met were not for­eign pol­i­cy ex­perts, they were fa­thers, broth­ers, and sons just try­ing to make a liv­ing. They spoke of be­ing chased by the Venezue­lan Guardia, of spot­ting uniden­ti­fied air­craft at night, of the un­easy qui­et that hangs over the Gulf of Paria. And now, as these re­ports dom­i­nate in­ter­na­tion­al head­lines, their words echo loud­er than ever: “We feel alone. We feel for­got­ten.”

This sit­u­a­tion al­so rais­es se­ri­ous ques­tions about our diplo­ma­cy. How can we be ne­go­ti­at­ing the Drag­on Gas deal with Venezuela while their Vice-Pres­i­dent, Del­cy Ro­dríguez, open­ly crit­i­cis­es our Prime Min­is­ter, ac­cus­ing her of par­rot­ing US talk­ing points? More im­por­tant­ly, what ex­act­ly is Trinidad and To­ba­go’s for­eign pol­i­cy? The peo­ple de­serve to know where our na­tion stands in a time of ris­ing re­gion­al ten­sions.

T&T must de­cide what kind of coun­try it wants to be, one that qui­et­ly ac­cepts what­ev­er nar­ra­tives are hand­ed to it, or one that stands firm in de­fence of its peo­ple and its sov­er­eign­ty.

This is not about de­fend­ing law­break­ers. It is about de­fend­ing prin­ci­ples. Every cit­i­zen, no mat­ter their sta­tion, is en­ti­tled to due process and to the pro­tec­tion of their state. That pro­tec­tion is not con­di­tion­al on so­cial class or pub­lic sym­pa­thy. It is the foun­da­tion of jus­tice it­self.

Si­lence in mo­ments like this, breeds mis­trust. It leaves cit­i­zens un­cer­tain about whether their gov­ern­ment will de­fend them and speak up when it mat­ters most.

Lead­er­ship re­quires more than at­tend­ing cer­e­monies and is­su­ing press re­leas­es. It re­quires courage, the courage to speak when it is in­con­ve­nient, to ques­tion pow­er­ful na­tions when nec­es­sary, and to pri­ori­tise the safe­ty and dig­ni­ty of your peo­ple above all else.

What should have hap­pened this week was sim­ple, an of­fi­cial state­ment con­firm­ing whether the Gov­ern­ment had re­quest­ed in­for­ma­tion from the Unit­ed States and Venezuela, con­fir­ma­tion that con­tact had been made with the fam­i­lies, and as­sur­ance that the Min­istry of For­eign Af­fairs was ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing an­swers. None of that oc­curred.

The peo­ple of T&T de­serve no less. The fam­i­lies of those miss­ing at sea de­serve com­pas­sion, not con­dem­na­tion. And the fish­er­men of Ce­dros, Ica­cos, Las Cuevas and every coastal com­mu­ni­ty de­serve a gov­ern­ment that hears them be­fore tragedy strikes, not af­ter.

Un­til our lead­ers find the po­lit­i­cal will to speak up for the peo­ple they serve, that si­lence will con­tin­ue to speak for them. And it says, more loud­ly than any state­ment ever could, that when it comes to pro­tect­ing our own, we have been left adrift.

Mick­ela Pan­day is the po­lit­i­cal leader of the Pa­tri­ot­ic Front and an at­tor­ney.

Email: pa­tri­ot­ic.front.tt@gmail.com