Yvonne?Ba­boolal

Last Tues­day, hunger strik­er Dr Wayne Kublals­ingh said he did not think he could make it be­yond the next two or three days. The last week was crit­i­cal.On Fri­day, Kublals­ingh, very lu­cid, did a lengthy tele­phone in­ter­view with the Guardian.Asked how he man­aged to make it, hav­ing not eat­en or drunk any­thing for 44 days, he said he him­self was very shocked."I my­self am very shocked my body is go­ing for so long. I didn't think it would last more than three days."

Kublals­ingh said it is "the spir­it" that has been nour­ish­ing and strength­en­ing him."My body is just go­ing and go­ing. I can't ex­plain it."As the days go by, my body is get­ting weak­er but my mind has be­come ex­treme­ly clear."If you be­lieve, every­thing be­comes pos­si­ble. I think it's a tri­umph of the spir­it."He added, "Of course, at some point my body is go­ing to re­lent."But I am not go­ing to make any pre­dic­tion again. I have been pre­dict­ing wrong­ly."

And if he did pass on, what would be his last words to cit­i­zens of T&T?"I would ask them to go back to their holy books, re­new their faith and un­der­stand its im­por­tance."When Paul be­rat­ed the Gala­tians (in the Bible), they had for­got­ten the spir­it and were liv­ing in the flesh."Peo­ple of­ten need to be re­mind­ed flesh is tran­si­to­ry, and it is the spir­it that is re­al."

Kublals­ingh, a Pres­by­ter­ian, said he has been read­ing all the sa­cred books, but it was the Gi­ta that had the great­est im­pact on him.Quot­ing a line from it, he said, "The re­al nev­er is not. The un­re­al is."He in­sist­ed he will not end the hunger strike un­til Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar ho­n­ours her promise to halt and re­view the Debe to Mon De­sir seg­ment of the Point Fortin high­way.He is con­fi­dent of vic­to­ry be­cause it was not up to the PM but the pub­lic, he said.

Asked if it has all come down to a bat­tle of wills be­tween him and the PM, who is al­so un­re­lent­ing in her de­ci­sion the project will go on, he said, "I don't see that at all."I see in­tel­li­gent and pro­gres­sive faces in so­ci­ety bat­tling with the Prime Min­is­ter in the mat­ter."Kublals­ingh said he con­sult­ed with mem­bers of the me­dia, the Catholic church and civ­il groups be­fore he em­barked on the sec­ond hunger strike.

He ini­ti­at­ed the con­sul­ta­tion and pro­posed the sec­ond hunger strike and none of them sup­port­ed the idea, he said.He de­nied he was be­ing backed by any po­lit­i­cal pres­sure group but ex­pressed sol­i­dar­i­ty with Move­ment for So­cial Jus­tice's David Ab­du­lah, who re­signed as a gov­ern­ment sen­a­tor, and An­cel Ro­get, leader of the Oil­field Work­ers Trade Union who has par­tic­i­pat­ed in PNM march­es.Kublals­ingh said they are com­rades who have been sup­port­ive.

Asked if he had com­mu­nist views, like Ab­du­lah, he said eva­sive­ly, "We share a lot of ideas to­geth­er. He, Ro­get, all of us, have a strong sol­i­dar­i­ty, as we have with the Catholic church."But he added, "We are al­so aligned with mid­dle class cap­i­tal­ists."Kublals­ingh said while he was fast­ing in front the PM's St Clair of­fice, a busi­ness­man gave the High­way Re-route Move­ment he led $80,000 which they used for tele­vi­sion ads.

De­scrib­ing him­self as a so­cial war­rior cre­at­ing a rev­o­lu­tion, Kublals­ingh said the Gov­ern­ment needs to feel the cut­ting edge of the pow­er of the peo­ple, and the peo­ple need to feel the cut­ting edge of their pow­er."The Gov­ern­ment needs to feel vul­ner­a­ble," he said.When the Sun­day Guardian con­tact­ed Kublals­ingh yes­ter­day af­ter­noon, he said, in a very low tone, that he was not go­ing to give up on the hunger strike. "I know I can die from a stroke or a heart at­tack at any mo­ment, but I am not giv­ing up."

Asked if sac­ri­fic­ing his life for the high­way was worth it, Kublals­ingh said "yes."He added, "I am do­ing all this for the peo­ple who are be­ing tak­en ad­van­tage of, what the Gov­ern­ment is do­ing is wrong." To­day marks day 46 of Kublals­ingh's hunger strike.