There are two events which we hold in memo­ri­am to­day. One is the state of emer­gency de­clared by Dr Er­ic Williams on Oc­to­ber 19, 1971. The sec­ond is the 35th an­niver­sary of the ex­e­cu­tion of Grena­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Mau­rice Bish­op on the Oc­to­ber 19, 1983.

As with every com­mem­o­ra­tion, there are mat­ters for con­tem­pla­tion. Two over­ar­ch­ing con­sid­er­a­tions for me are the lack of a sense of his­to­ry in the Caribbean and our lack of grat­i­tude. It is im­por­tant that we should re­mem­ber George San­tayana’s state­ment, “Those who can­not re­mem­ber the past are con­demned to re­peat it.” We should al­so re­mem­ber our own say­ing, “In­grat­i­tude is worse than witch­craft.”

Trinidad and To­ba­go is in the midst of a cri­sis in­volv­ing the clo­sure of the Petrotrin Re­fin­ery, which will make thou­sands of peo­ple face an un­cer­tain fu­ture. A pre­cur­sor to Petrotrin’s prob­lems are the suc­ces­sion of events which led to the 1971 SoE. Both events have in­volved the Oil­fields Work­ers’ Trade Union (OW­TU).

The Grena­da sit­u­a­tion, on the oth­er hand, was one of co­er­cion by the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, peren­ni­al­ly afraid of the self–de­ter­mi­na­tion of peo­ples with­in this hemi­sphere. Notwith­stand­ing that the op­por­tu­ni­ty for Amer­i­can in­ter­ven­tion was al­so cre­at­ed by ide­o­log­i­cal dif­fer­ences with­in the Peo­ple’s Rev­o­lu­tion­ary Gov­ern­ment.

Lest we for­get, be­tween late 1970 and 1971 the Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee (NJAC) sup­port­ed trade unions by send­ing its mem­bers to join pick­et lines in sol­i­dar­i­ty with work­ers at firms like Dun­lop and Fed­chem.

Those events were the gen­er­al con­text with­in which the 1971 SoE took place. The spe­cif­ic in­ci­dents start­ed in April 1971 when the BAD­GER Cor­po­ra­tion got a con­tract to build a desul­phuri­sa­tion plant at the Point-a-Pierre re­fin­ery. OW­TU was the recog­nised union.

NJAC ac­tivists, mean­while, ag­i­tat­ed for in­creased em­ploy­ment on the project. Work­ers came in­to con­flict with BAD­GER and their sub­con­trac­tor WIM­PEY. In the es­ca­lat­ing sit­u­a­tion both com­pa­nies an­nounced that they would cease op­er­a­tions. With the col­lu­sion of the gov­ern­ment, the com­pa­nies flew their staff and fam­i­lies back to USA and de­mand­ed cer­tain as­sur­ances be­fore re­turn­ing to Trinidad.

These acts fore­shad­owed the at­ti­tude of Petrotrin chair­man, Mr Wil­fred Es­pinet, who threat­ened that if Petrotrin did not get its way re­gard­ing clo­sure he would have the com­pa­ny de­clared bank­rupt. In oth­er words, work­ers would have had to face the same fate that em­ploy­ees suf­fered at Arcelor-Mit­tal in 2016

I hope that I am wrong, but I do not re­call whether the OW­TU (or oth­er labour unions) have had any ac­tiv­i­ties in com­mem­o­ra­tion of Oc­to­ber 19.

Three OW­TU mem­bers, George Weekes, Win­ston Lennard and Nue­vo Di­az, who were im­pris­oned in 1971 are now de­ceased. I am un­cer­tain if Alain Camp­bell is alive. Pro­fes­sor Win­ston Suite of UM­RO­BI has re­tired from UWI.

Since 1972, NJAC has ob­served Oc­to­ber 19 in dif­fer­ent ways. This year there will be a com­mem­o­ra­tion at the NJAC head­quar­ters. Five NJAC de­tainees dur­ing the 1971 SoE are now de­ceased, Chief Ser­vant Makan­dal Daa­ga, Dedan Ki­mathi, Oroonko Bar­ca, Stan­ley An­toine and Alvin Adams. Clive Nunez is alive.

We need to re­mem­ber that in Grena­da, ten­sion be­tween fac­tions in the PRG had grown un­til Oc­to­ber 1983 when it be­came open con­flict. Mau­rice Bish­op and oth­ers were ar­rest­ed by their op­po­nents led by Bernard Coard, then res­cued by the peo­ple. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, they were lat­er re­cap­tured and ex­e­cut­ed.

Bish­op died to­geth­er with Kei­th Hayling, Eve­lyn Bullen, Uni­son White­man, Jacque­line Creft, Eve­lyn Mait­land, Nor­ris Bain and Fitzroy Bain.

The Or­gan­i­sa­tion of East­ern Caribbean States, Bar­ba­dos, Ja­maica and Grena­da’s Gov­er­nor-Gen­er­al Paul Scoon ap­pealed to the Unit­ed States for help. On Oc­to­ber 25, US Pres­i­dent Ronald Rea­gan or­dered the in­va­sion of Grena­da some­thing which he had con­tem­plat­ed be­cause he be­lieved that Grena­da’s new in­ter­na­tion­al air­port with its long run­way, would have been used by the So­vi­ets as a way­point for their air­craft.

When we for­get Oc­to­ber 19 it means that we have cast aside the labour of our pre­de­ces­sors. Our gen­er­a­tion should show them our grat­i­tude.