Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Fol­low­ing a heart­felt on­line post by Tashia Bur­ris, Wat­son Duke urged her to re­join the Pro­gres­sive De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Pa­tri­ots (PDP). Bur­ris marked the an­niver­sary of her se­lec­tion as the PDP can­di­date for To­ba­go West in the 2020 Gen­er­al Elec­tion, re­flect­ing on the fight for To­ba­go’s full self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Bur­ris marked five years since her can­di­da­cy an­nounce­ment, de­scrib­ing it as “one of the proud­est mo­ments of my life then as I felt I was walk­ing the path that God laid be­fore me.”

Bur­ris said uni­ty is es­sen­tial to fight for To­ba­go’s fu­ture. “To­ba­go needs all its fight­ers, now more than ever,” she wrote. “We may not agree on the meth­ods, or even the path, but what we can­not af­ford to lose sight of is the des­ti­na­tion. To­ba­go’s self-de­ter­mi­na­tion has al­ways been the goal.”

She al­so shared a mem­o­ry of stand­ing along­side Duke, say­ing that al­though they have since gone sep­a­rate ways, she still hoped for him to be the leader she once be­lieved in. “I re­mem­ber the per­son who I stood next to, flawed as he is and was, who back then I be­lieved tru­ly want­ed bet­ter for this is­land and the peo­ple of To­ba­go,” Bur­ris said.

When asked about rec­on­cil­i­a­tion, she told a com­menter it was “not the pur­pose of my post. I choose to com­mem­o­rate this day with a mem­o­ry that I still hold dear. I choose to for­give, move on and live in grace.”

In his re­sponse, Duke praised her con­tin­ued sup­port for To­ba­go’s self-de­ter­mi­na­tion. How­ev­er, he ex­pressed con­cern about her align­ment with the Far­ley Au­gus­tine-led THA Ex­ec­u­tive, which he said has un­der­mined the true fight for full au­ton­o­my. He wrote, “It is clear that you are now part of a THA Ex­ec­u­tive team whose ac­tions have con­sis­tent­ly un­der­mined the true fight for To­ba­go’s full self-de­ter­mi­na­tion.”

Duke en­cour­aged Bur­ris to con­sid­er whether her cur­rent po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment aligns with her prin­ci­ples. “As a con­scious in­di­vid­ual, I am sure you must rec­og­nize the dis­so­nance be­tween your prin­ci­ples and the de­ci­sions be­ing made by those you cur­rent­ly work along­side,” he said.

He in­vit­ed Bur­ris to re­turn to the PDP, where the vi­sion of full self-de­ter­mi­na­tion re­mains cen­tral. “Come back home to the PDP, where the mis­sion for To­ba­go’s full self-de­ter­mi­na­tion re­mains at the PDP’s fore­front,” Duke wrote. “To­geth­er, we as a To­ba­go-con­scious peo­ple can con­tin­ue the jour­ney that be­gan five years ago, reignit­ing the hope and promise that brought To­ba­go all to­geth­er in the first place.”

“The des­ti­na­tion we spoke of — To­ba­go’s com­plete eman­ci­pa­tion and em­pow­er­ment — is still with­in reach, but it re­quires lead­ers who are un­wa­ver­ing in their com­mit­ment to the cause.”