DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee of Trinidad and To­ba­go (ES­CTT) has re­ject­ed crit­i­cism from Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar over the treat­ment of Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin dur­ing this year’s Eman­ci­pa­tion Day ob­ser­vances, in­sist­ing that the min­is­ter was nei­ther abused nor placed in dan­ger.

The com­mit­tee sug­gest­ed that the Prime Min­is­ter may have been mis­in­formed about what oc­curred dur­ing the cel­e­bra­tions.

The ES­CTT re­spond­ed pub­licly yes­ter­day, days af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar ac­cused the or­gan­i­sa­tion of fail­ing to in­ter­vene when Ben­jamin was heck­led dur­ing the Eman­ci­pa­tion Day pro­ces­sion and al­leged that there had been po­lit­i­cal in­ter­fer­ence.

ES­CTT Pub­lic Pol­i­cy Ex­pert Dr Asha Kam­bon said the Prime Min­is­ter may not have re­ceived an ac­cu­rate ac­count of the events.

“We have no in­ter­est in the po­lit­i­cal ban­ter back and forth be­tween one group or the oth­er, one par­ty and the oth­er. We’re not in­volved. And we think it’s ab­solute­ly un­for­tu­nate that maybe the Prime Min­is­ter was mis­led about what hap­pened both at the Trea­sury Build­ing and at the Sa­van­nah.”

The com­mit­tee main­tained that Ben­jamin was nev­er at risk of harm.

It said that when Ben­jamin was jeered out­side the Trea­sury Build­ing, mas­ter of cer­e­monies Shaba­ka Kam­bon and an­oth­er ex­ec­u­tive mem­ber in­ter­vened, ad­mon­ish­ing a man in the crowd who lat­er re­spond­ed that he should not be told what to say.

Ben­jamin re­mained at the event af­ter the con­fronta­tion, par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Eman­ci­pa­tion pro­ces­sion, vis­it­ing the Eman­ci­pa­tion Vil­lage and lat­er pre­sent­ing an award. The com­mit­tee said this demon­strat­ed that there had been no threat to her safe­ty.

The con­fronta­tion be­gan out­side the Trea­sury Build­ing, where a woman chal­lenged Ben­jamin over the Gov­ern­ment’s eco­nom­ic poli­cies be­fore the min­is­ter was lat­er booed af­ter ex­press­ing pride in serv­ing in Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s Cab­i­net.

The Prime Min­is­ter sub­se­quent­ly crit­i­cised the ES­CTT for what she de­scribed as its fail­ure to in­ter­vene.

ES­CTT board ad­vi­sor Hazel Si­mon­ette re­ject­ed sug­ges­tions that the or­gan­i­sa­tion was com­plic­it.

“In­di­cat­ing or im­ply­ing that the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee was com­plic­it is not at all a fair po­si­tion.”

The or­gan­i­sa­tion al­so re­ject­ed claims that it was po­lit­i­cal­ly af­fil­i­at­ed.

“The Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee is a non-par­ti­san, apo­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tion and we are not re­spon­si­ble for the ac­tions of any par­tic­u­lar par­ty, nor do we en­gage or part­ner with ac­tions that were not in the best in­ter­est of our peo­ple,” Uzoma-Wada­da said.

The ES­CTT said it had no in­ter­est in be­com­ing in­volved in po­lit­i­cal dis­putes be­tween the coun­try’s ma­jor par­ties.

Kam­bon lat­er de­scribed the con­tro­ver­sy as dis­pro­por­tion­ate to what had oc­curred.

“Be­cause her re­sponse was full of vit­ri­ol and so on. And it’s of some­body who feels deeply hurt and deeply pained and trou­bled. Cer­tain­ly, what tran­spired at the Trea­sury Build­ing is par for the course. Very of­ten there’s some­body, some in­di­vid­ual, who feels some­what frus­trat­ed or dis­tressed or has a point to make and makes it. I think it’s a storm in a teacup, frankly,” she said.

The ES­CTT al­so re­vealed that it was in­formed ap­prox­i­mate­ly one hour be­fore Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s sched­uled ad­dress that the Prime Min­is­ter would not at­tend the clos­ing cer­e­mo­ny, leav­ing or­gan­is­ers with lim­it­ed time to amend the pro­gramme.

While de­fend­ing its han­dling of the event, the com­mit­tee ex­pressed con­cern that the na­tion­al con­ver­sa­tion had shift­ed away from the sig­nif­i­cance of Eman­ci­pa­tion and to­wards in­creas­ing­ly di­vi­sive po­lit­i­cal rhetoric.

Kam­bon al­so ques­tioned the me­dia’s de­ci­sion to broad­cast of­fen­sive racial slurs.

“I am very sur­prised that the me­dia al­lows those words to be aired. In oth­er parts of the world, the me­dia sim­ply bleeps them out. When some­one makes the er­ror of us­ing such of­fen­sive lan­guage, the me­dia bleeps it out. So I want to ques­tion, how is the me­dia al­low­ing these used words to be part of our pub­lic space?”

The com­mit­tee de­clined to com­ment on the con­tro­ver­sy sur­round­ing the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s de­ci­sion to in­clude tra­di­tion­al In­di­an dance and mu­sic in its African Eman­ci­pa­tion Day com­mem­o­ra­tion, say­ing it did not wish to be­come in­volved in an­oth­er pub­lic dis­pute.

“Be­cause the lan­guage and the con­ver­sa­tion has de­te­ri­o­rat­ed and con­tin­ues to do so, we would pre­fer to stay out of it.”

The ES­CTT nev­er­the­less urged pub­lic fig­ures and cit­i­zens to be more mind­ful of the lan­guage they use.

“We all need to be­come sen­si­tive to the cul­tur­al make­up of our so­ci­ety and how ac­tions and words can af­fect oth­ers.”

Mean­while, the Telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go (TATT) said it had re­ceived no com­plaints re­gard­ing the Prime Min­is­ter’s re­cent com­ments but con­tin­ues to mon­i­tor broad­casts as part of its rou­tine over­sight.

The au­thor­i­ty said broad­cast­ers have an oblig­a­tion not to air of­fen­sive or deroga­to­ry con­tent and may still be held li­able for re­pro­duc­ing such lan­guage, even when re­port­ing news­wor­thy state­ments. It said con­text and ed­i­to­r­i­al treat­ment would be con­sid­ered when de­ter­min­ing whether a broad­cast breach­es reg­u­la­to­ry stan­dards.

“It’s ex­pect­ed that broad­cast­ers will en­sure that con­tent is not of­fen­sive and is re­spect­ful of our mul­ti­cul­tur­al so­ci­ety,” TATT said.

Asked whether it had ini­ti­at­ed ac­tion against any me­dia house over the broad­cast of the re­marks, TATT de­clined to com­ment.

Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed Cul­ture Min­is­ter Michelle Ben­jamin for com­ment. She re­quest­ed that ques­tions be sent via What­sApp, but no re­sponse was re­ceived up to the time of pub­li­ca­tion.