SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Pres­i­dent Paula-Mae Weekes says she did not speak out in the weeks fol­low­ing An­drea Bharatt’s mur­der, de­spite pub­lic calls for her to do so, be­cause she had no com­fort to bring to cit­i­zens.

In her In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day mes­sage, pub­lished in yes­ter­day’s news­pa­per, Weekes said cit­i­zens have in­stead brought com­fort to her with their ac­tivism and out­cry.

She re­called the pop­u­la­tion’s im­me­di­ate re­sponse on Feb­ru­ary 4, when Bharatt’s de­com­pos­ing body was found down a precipice in the Heights of Aripo, four days af­ter she was kid­napped in Ari­ma while on her way home from work.

“Cit­i­zens in anger and angst called out par­lia­ment, politi­cians, the po­lice ser­vice, the Ju­di­cia­ry, at­tor­neys-at-law, PH dri­vers, among oth­ers, for con­tribut­ing, by act or omis­sion, to their death and de­mand­ing im­me­di­ate cor­rec­tive mea­sures. Fright­ened and con­cerned mem­bers of the pop­u­la­tion, pre­dom­i­nant­ly women, marched, held plac­ards aloft, par­tic­i­pat­ed in vig­ils, formed com­mu­ni­ty groups and prayed for di­vine in­ter­ven­tion,” Weekes said.

She de­scribed the re­sponse from politi­cians, po­lice and oth­er stake­hold­ers as swift - with politi­cians point­ing fin­gers at each oth­er in the process.

She al­so not­ed the calls for her to speak, say­ing cit­i­zens have grown ac­cus­tomed to in­stant re­ac­tions and so­cial me­dia fod­der.

“Im­pas­sioned cit­i­zens en­quired, some more civil­ly than oth­ers, where was the Pres­i­dent while all of this was hap­pen­ing and why she, par­tic­u­lar­ly as a woman, had said noth­ing ... Let­ters to the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent and com­ments on­line sug­gest­ed that cit­i­zens want­ed their Pres­i­dent to, among oth­er things, com­fort them, bring the na­tion to­geth­er, use “moral sua­sion to make the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion find com­mon ground” and, most of all, give them hope,” she said.

She said de­spite these calls, she was not ready to speak as Pres­i­dent. Ref­er­enc­ing her decades in the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem, Weekes said as a cit­i­zen she could have giv­en an im­me­di­ate ear­ful.

“Hav­ing worked for 34 years as pros­e­cu­tor, de­fence coun­sel, tri­al judge and ap­pel­late judge, I know all too well that women falling vic­tim to se­r­i­al rapists and mur­der­ers, or dis­ap­pear­ing with­out a trace, is not a new phe­nom­e­non in our crim­i­nal land­scape. An­drea and Ashan­ti were but the two most re­cent vic­tims of men we call mon­sters, but if mon­sters, mon­sters of our own mak­ing.”

She said T&T is re­spon­si­ble for nur­tur­ing such mon­sters by fail­ing to ef­fec­tive­ly so­cialise them in homes and schools and pro­vid­ing them with a so­cial safe­ty net to ad­dress their is­sues.

“Over the years, a num­ber of heart-rend­ing mur­ders moved the na­tion and pro­voked so­cial ag­i­ta­tion. Af­ter each grue­some case, the same re­volv­ing ex­cus­es, dis­cus­sions and sug­ges­tions—re­sume hang­ing; no bail for sex of­fend­ers; quick­en the pace of jus­tice; reg­u­larise “PH” Taxis; give women the means to arm them­selves—were un­packed, all to no avail.”

Weekes said since 1982, when she start­ed work­ing at the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions, 11 gov­ern­ments have been called up­on to ad­dress this scourge.

But she said she does not be­lieve the women of T&T are any more safe now than they were then. She not­ed that since she as­sumed of­fice, 155 women have lost their lives to vi­o­lence. This, she said, is why she wait­ed un­til now to speak out.

“For some, this re­sponse might be too lit­tle, too late, and that is not an un­rea­son­able view, but years of judge­ment writ­ing have in­stilled the habit of de­lib­er­ate re­flec­tion. I pon­dered, how do I com­fort the na­tion in a time of cri­sis when the cri­sis is lit­er­al­ly cre­at­ed by our so­ci­ety? To com­fort is to give some as­sur­ance that will ease or al­le­vi­ate feel­ings of grief and dis­tress. What as­sur­ance could I of­fer? It would have been easy to trot out the for­mu­la­ic “thoughts and prayers” or “bet­ter days are com­ing,” but I did not think that those plat­i­tudes would have ef­fi­ca­cy and, in any event, while it may ap­pear cal­lous, I was not con­vinced that the Re­pub­lic ought to be com­fort­ed at all.”

The Pres­i­dent said she fears com­fort will lull cit­i­zens back in­to a ‘col­lec­tive stu­por.’

She said the dis­com­fort felt by many is what drove the ac­tivism and ad­vo­ca­cy that have brought about sev­er­al pieces of leg­is­la­tion from the Gov­ern­ment, in­clud­ing pep­per spray leg­is­la­tion and new sex­u­al of­fences.

“I could of­fer no com­fort,” she said.

She warned cit­i­zens not to lose sight of the strides their ac­tivism has made and urged the coun­try to close­ly ex­am­ine what made Bharatt’s death the tip­ping point, say­ing it is not suf­fi­cient to say ‘enough is enough.’

“I mean no dis­re­spect, but I did laugh aloud at the idea that moral sua­sion by the apo­lit­i­cal Pres­i­dent could have any salu­tary ef­fect on politi­cians in op­pos­ing camps; were it so, many of our na­tion­al prob­lems would have long been solved. I am not the first, nor I sus­pect the last, Pres­i­dent to urge politi­cians to put coun­try first. On many oc­ca­sions, most re­cent­ly at the open­ing of the 12th Par­lia­ment, I ad­vised the Gov­ern­ment and Op­po­si­tion to come to­geth­er for the good of the coun­try. This is an in­te­gral part of the du­ty of the Pres­i­dent but I am not be­ing mod­est when I say that I have a sneak­ing sus­pi­cion that my call is of­ten trumped by po­lit­i­cal ex­pe­di­en­cy.”

She said politi­cians are most per­suad­ed by the voice of the elec­torate, adding cit­i­zens have been able to ac­com­plish in a few short weeks what Pres­i­dents could not.

“Make no mis­take, that ob­jec­tive will not be achieved overnight, we are in this for the long haul. Suc­cess de­pends on our abil­i­ty to stay the course. Dare we hope?” Weekes asked.