Gail Alexan­der

A peace­ful protest by po­lit­i­cal groups and unions against the Gov­ern­ment's prop­er­ty tax turned vi­o­lent­ly ug­ly out­side the Red House yes­ter­day when po­lice ar­rest­ed Fi­tun leader David Ab­du­lah and rained blows on four Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union mem­bers. The sit­u­a­tion erupt­ed on Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, be­fore re­porters who looked on in dis­be­lief as the sound of body blows from ba­tons thud­ded off OW­TU mem­bers who tried to fol­low Ab­du­lah when he was dragged away by po­lice. The pro­test­ers had gath­ered at 1.40 pm on the Knox Street pave­ment out­side the Red House's north­ern side to protest Gov­ern­ment's prop­er­ty tax. They be­gan chant­i­ng slo­gans as Fi­nance Min­is­ter Karen Tesheira pi­lot­ed the tax bill in­side the Red House dur­ing yes­ter­day's Low­er House sit­ting.

The group in­clud­ed Ab­du­lah, Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union pres­i­dent An­cel Ro­get and his mem­bers, COP deputy leader Prakash Ra­mad­har, COP's Stephen Kan­gal and oth­er COP mem­bers, NAR's Lennox Sankers­ingh, Steven Theodore of the NGOs net­work, One Ac­cord Group Lin­coln My­ers–in a wheel­chair–at­tor­ney Garvin Nicholas, busi­ness­man Gre­go­ry Fer­nan­des, All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Union pres­i­dent Rudy In­dars­ingh and UNC MP Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj who marched briefly be­fore en­ter­ing Par­lia­ment. Hoist­ing plac­ards protest­ing the prop­er­ty tax, the group com­plet­ed sev­er­al laps around the pave­ment with­out in­ter­fer­ence up to 2 pm. How­ev­er, po­lice sta­tioned at the Par­lia­ment be­gan emerg­ing then. The group's chants then changed from No More Tax­es, No more Patrick (Man­ning) and No More Karen (Tesheira) to No More PNM, No More Thief­ing and No More Calder Hart. The Par­lia­ment's mar­shal Ray­mond Bar­ras and a po­lice of­fi­cer then spoke with OW­TU's Ro­get.

Ro­get and pro­test­ers were asked to keep the noise lev­el down be­cause the chants were al­leged­ly dis­turb­ing the de­bate. He said the group would try to have the demon­stra­tion in a way that would not dis­turb the peace. But, he not­ed that the is­sue was an emo­tion­al one. He said the groups had writ­ten House Speak­er Baren­dra Sinanan on the is­sue. Both Ro­get and Ab­du­lah said the group was not break­ing the law since they had no noisy In­stru­ments or mu­si­cal ac­com­pa­ni­ment. The pro­test­ers con­tin­ued their demon­stra­tion. But, 20 min­utes lat­er–with a grow­ing heav­i­ly-armed Ri­ot Po­lice pres­ence–of­fi­cers re­turned to ask Ro­get and Ab­du­lah to "tone it down." Po­lice then be­gan mov­ing in on the group pre­vent­ing them from com­plet­ing their "lap" on the pave­ment and herd­ing pro­test­ers east­ward–away from the Red House.

One po­lice­man at­tempt­ed to lift Lin­coln My­ers' wheel­chair to re­move him and an­oth­er rough­ly grabbed the hand of My­ers' com­pan­ion–who was wheel­ing him–in a bid to halt them. "This is mad­ness! But I will not sur­ren­der!" My­ers shout­ed, be­fore a po­lice of­fi­cer or­dered a Guardian re­porter away from his side. Ab­du­lah at­tempt­ed to re­in­force the group's po­si­tion with the po­lice who sur­round­ed him. How­ev­er, Ab­du­lah was dragged away by po­lice to a wait­ing squad car PCJ 9138. In the melee, OW­TU mem­bers at­tempt­ed to fol­low po­lice to res­cue Ab­du­lah, but clashed with ba­ton-wield­ing of­fi­cers who hit them so fierce­ly the thud of blows could be heard by jour­nal­ists present.

Beat­en by po­lice were OW­TU's Hugh Springer, re­search of­fi­cer Nik­ki John­son, Pe­nal branch of­fi­cial S Sa­hadeo and Ossie War­wick. Springer, who said he was du­ty-bound to pro­tect Ab­du­lah his col­league, was hit about the face and arms and sus­tained a bleed­ing cut to his left arm. Sa­hadeo al­so sport­ed a red welt. John­son was hit in the chest by a be­spec­ta­cled of­fi­cer.

Af­ter his ar­res, Ab­du­lah was de­tained at Cen­tral Po­lice Sta­tion where he was charged with "ob­struct­ing the free pas­sage­way" and de­tained for three hours be­fore be­ing al­lowed $500 bail. Ab­du­lah will ap­pear in the Port-of-Spain Mag­is­trates' Court on Mon­day to an­swer the charge. Af­ter his re­lease, Ab­du­lah said the cit­i­zens have a le­gal right to peace­ful pick­et­ing. "We won't con­cede that right...but Gov­ern­ment will pay a po­lit­i­cal price if they in­sist on try­ing to pass this tax and we hold by that," he said. "This tax must be with­drawn. "We've al­so giv­en Gov­ern­ment un­til De­cem­ber 31 to deal with oth­er de­mands. If not, we con­tin­ue in a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic peace­ful way to ex­er­cise our right to protest and strug­gle," he added. As Ab­du­lah was hauled away, COP's Ra­mad­har said: "The vi­o­lence has been in­voked by the po­lice. Peo­ple must pro­tect them­selves now from force. This Gov­ern­ment's dic­ta­tor­ship has now turned in­to vi­o­lence.

"This will fur­ther strength­en the re­solve of those who are in­ter­est­ed in T&T's fu­ture be­cause we saw phys­i­cal ev­i­dence to­day of the dic­ta­tor­ship in T&T," he said. At­tor­ney Garvin Nicholas said he was as­sault­ed by of­fi­cers when he at­tempt­ed to find out why Ab­du­lah was ar­rest­ed. OW­TU's Ro­get ac­cused the Gov­ern­ment of beat­ing cit­i­zens in­to sub­mis­sion. UNC MP Roodal Mooni­lal who left de­bate and joined pro­test­ers. Mooni­lal said: "This is a fright­ful ex­pres­sion of the dic­ta­tor­ship we live un­der and the will of the State to sup­press peo­ples' views." Sev­er­al UNC?MP's al­so joined the march.