An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers

@guardian.co.tt

Over two hun­dred peo­ple gath­ered at Wood­ford Square, Port-of-Spain, last evening for a vig­il for peace, where ac­tivists, faith lead­ers, and rep­re­sen­ta­tives of civ­il so­ci­ety joined in a solemn show of sol­i­dar­i­ty call­ing for peace across the Caribbean re­gion.

The at­mos­phere was calm yet pur­pose­ful, as par­tic­i­pants held plac­ards, shared mes­sages of uni­ty, and lis­tened at­ten­tive­ly to speak­ers urg­ing the re­gion to stand firm in its com­mit­ment to re­main a zone of peace amid ten­sions be­tween the Unit­ed States and Venezuela.

From the steps near the his­toric band­stand, or­gan­is­ers urged cit­i­zens to speak out against vi­o­lence and de­fend the Caribbean’s long-stand­ing sta­tus as a “zone of peace.”

The event, themed Be­cause No­body Wins a War, a ref­er­ence to ca­lyp­son­ian Singing San­dra’s clas­sic song, was a grass­roots ef­fort led by the Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice (MSJ), the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, and oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions.

Po­lit­i­cal leader of the MSJ, David Ab­du­lah, said the vig­il was born out of a need to cre­ate a space where or­di­nary cit­i­zens could gath­er peace­ful­ly to ex­press their con­cern about grow­ing re­gion­al ten­sions.

“The oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties we had were more like press events,” Ab­du­lah ex­plained. “We want­ed some­thing for cit­i­zens who feel strong­ly about peace to come to­geth­er. This isn’t about pol­i­tics. It’s about hu­man­i­ty stand­ing for peace and against colo­nial and im­pe­r­i­al con­quest.”

He said the call for peace was not di­rect­ed at any gov­ern­ment, but rather at all cit­i­zens of the re­gion.

“Si­lence is not an op­tion,” Ab­du­lah stressed. “We can­not stand by and see peo­ple be­ing killed with­out any process or jus­tice. This is a stand for hu­man­i­ty.”

The Joint Trade Union Move­ment, led by An­cel Ro­get, has al­so come out call­ing for the re­gion to re­main peace­ful as the US de­ployed sev­er­al mil­i­tary ves­sels to the Caribbean. Ro­get was not there yes­ter­day, but a rep­re­sen­ta­tive for JTUM was sched­uled to at­tend.

Ex­ec­u­tive Chair of the Eman­ci­pa­tion Sup­port Com­mit­tee, Za­kiya Uzoma-Wada­da, al­so urged cit­i­zens to re­main vig­i­lant and vo­cal about pro­tect­ing the Caribbean from ex­ter­nal mil­i­tary ag­gres­sion.

“We want our re­gion to re­main a zone of peace,” she said. “We are not ready for the reper­cus­sions of war­fare in our re­gion. The peo­ple must say ‘no’ be­cause war is not an op­tion for us.”

She ex­pressed con­cern about what she de­scribed as “the au­dac­i­ty” of for­eign pow­ers act­ing in Caribbean wa­ters.

“The Unit­ed States be­lieves it can en­ter our re­gion, blow up ships, and kill peo­ple with no reper­cus­sions. Some­thing is wrong with that,” she said. “We must safe­guard our na­tion and re­gion for our­selves and for gen­er­a­tions to come.”

Among those stand­ing in sol­i­dar­i­ty was Afra Ray­mond, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Ray­mond and Pierre Lim­it­ed and for­mer pres­i­dent of the Joint Con­sul­ta­tive Coun­cil for the Con­struc­tion In­dus­try.

“We don’t want war in Trinidad and To­ba­go, or in any coun­try,” Ray­mond said. “The de­struc­tion we see in places like Pales­tine, Su­dan, and Ukraine should re­mind us of what we must avoid. The Caribbean must re­main a zone of peace.”

Al­so lend­ing his sup­port was Al­lan Fer­gu­son, pres­i­dent of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Scrap Iron Deal­ers As­so­ci­a­tion.

“No­body wins a war,” Fer­gu­son said. “We’ve been call­ing for peace here in Trinidad, but what’s hap­pen­ing around us shows we al­so need peace in the Caribbean.”

The crowd stood to­geth­er for a fi­nal mo­ment of si­lence as the event drew to a close.