Cather­ine Copeland

The re-launch of the Oil­fields Work­ers Trade Union's Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil on Feb­ru­ary 27 took a his­tor­i­cal slant as fea­ture speak­er Raf­fique Shah, trade union leader and po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, spoke at length about the Black Pow­er Move­ment of the 1970's which com­menced 40 years ago on Feb­ru­ary 26. The event was held at the Trade Union head­quar­ters on Cir­cu­lar Road in San Fer­nan­do. Shah said: "This takes me back many years to the time I was re­leased from prison in 1970. I faced two cap­i­tal charges of trea­son and mutiny and had I been found guilty I would have been hanged or shot." In 1970, Shah along with Rex Lasalle, who were both lieu­tenants in the T&T Reg­i­ment, mu­tinied and took hostages at the Teteron army bar­racks in Ch­aguara­mas.

Af­ter be­ing court mar­tialled and spend­ing a short time in prison, Shah joined the trade union move­ment. He de­clared, "The OW­TU to me is a pa­ter­nal or­gan­i­sa­tion and it was through them that I got my po­lit­i­cal ed­u­ca­tion. What we are see­ing here to­day, in terms of the re-launch of the Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil, is a spark to re-ig­nite the minds of the peo­ple." He spoke al­so about his book which he hopes to launch in April. Ozzie War­wick, mem­ber of the Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil, said: "His­to­ry was cre­at­ed by the Move­ment and there could no be a bet­ter time to re-launch the Ed­u­ca­tion Coun­cil of the OW­TU. It gives us hope to be­lieve in our­selves. It lets us know that we do not have to ac­cept in­dig­ni­ty."

OW­TU Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al, An­cil Ro­get, stat­ed: "Ed­u­ca­tion is the re­al tool and am­mu­ni­tion and the key to every­thing. In Trinidad and To­ba­go we have a lot of qual­i­fi­ca­tion and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion but not enough ed­u­ca­tion. There is not enough un­der­stand­ing of the world to­day, in­clud­ing the po­lit­i­cal ter­rain. "We need to learn how to em­brace the po­lit­i­cal ter­rain–not par­ty pol­i­tics–be­cause pol­i­tics shapes every­thing we do." Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of the OW­TU, David Ab­dul­lah, stat­ed: "What we want to see are young peo­ple mov­ing for­ward and be­com­ing branch lead­ers in the OW­TU. We want to see them en­gag­ing oth­ers with their ideas and their pas­sion for life." Ro­get al­so said there is a con­stant bat­tle for the minds of the pop­u­la­tion and it is their du­ty to ed­u­cate the mass­es so that they will awake from slum­ber and stand up and fight.