Ken Ali

Ex­act­ly 40 years af­ter his Black Pow­er rev­o­lu­tion was crushed, a tri­umphant Makan­dal Daa­ga last night ac­claimed vic­to­ry. "My dream has been ful­filled," Daa­ga said in his role as an as­pi­rant in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion. He de­clared that "nev­er again would you be ser­vants in your own coun­try. This land is yours."

"Hope has been re­alised," Daa­ga told a pub­lic meet­ing at Fyz­abad on a plat­form of op­po­si­tion uni­ty. Stat­ing that in past years peo­ple were "treat­ed like slaves," he added: "This is your mo­ment."

He claimed "bru­tal­i­ty" was met­ed out 40 years ago to Black Pow­er marchers. "That must nev­er hap­pen again," he stat­ed. Daa­ga spoke on the 40th an­niver­sary of his ar­rest and that of 14 oth­er front­line lead­ers of the Black Pow­er cam­paign. Then-Prime Min­is­ter Dr Er­ic Williams called a state of emer­gency to re­store so­cial sta­bil­i­ty to the coun­try. Daa­ga (for­mer­ly Ged­des Granger) and his group had led a three-month move­ment for im­proved so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­di­tions.

His Na­tion­al Joint Ac­tion Com­mit­tee, a pi­o­neer­ing group in the Black Pow­er cru­sade, is a part­ner in the po­lit­i­cal uni­ty arrange­ment that would be con­test­ing the May 24 on a com­mon tick­et. The re­spec­tive par­ties sealed their deal last night on the Fyz­abad stage. For­mer labour leader Er­rol McLeod al­so took a po­lit­i­cal stand, and strong­ly crit­i­cised the Patrick Man­ning regime. "His days are num­bered," said McLeod, who had pre­vi­ous­ly spo­ken on sev­er­al trade union plat­forms at Fyz­abad, con­sid­ered a sym­bol­ic home of the labour move­ment.