Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Once they were sworn en­e­mies. Now it ap­pears for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day, for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj, SC, and In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er have found uni­ty in a com­mon en­e­my–Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Yes­ter­day the trio, to­geth­er with ILP deputy lead­ers Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit and An­na De­onar­ine, Bank­ing In­sur­ance and Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union pres­i­dent gen­er­al Vin­cent Cabr­era and an uniden­ti­fied man in a COP shirt, held pri­vate talks at the All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union con­fer­ence room, Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va. For­mer UNC MP Mikela Pan­day was al­so in the meet­ing.

Pho­tog­ra­phers at­tempt­ed to get a pho­to­graph of the three men in the con­fer­ence room. How­ev­er, Pan­day re­fused. He said, "Why should I pros­ti­tute my­self for a pic­ture."The pho­tog­ra­phers were then told to leave the room by an of­fi­cial who said they were about to have "pri­vate meet­ing."Their meet­ing fol­lowed a mass con­fer­ence with cane farm­ers and ex-Ca­roni work­ers on the up­per floor of Rien­zi Com­plex which was packed. At­ten­dees lined the back and sides of the con­fer­ence area as all the seats were filled.

At that meet­ing Pan­day, who de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress, called on the farm­ers and ex-work­ers to rise up and re­claim the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) from the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ex­ec­u­tive.This was al­so echoed by Ma­haraj in his ad­dress.He said the UNC ship, its cap­tain and crew have "run aground.""I will try to save the ship. I will work with any­one to save the ship, but I can­not say I will be able to save the cap­tain and the crew," Ma­haraj said.

Both he and Pan­day ar­gued that the par­ty has aban­doned its found­ing prin­ci­ples.Ma­haraj said he re­mains a mem­ber of the UNC since he has life­time mem­ber­ship and can­not sit by and watch the par­ty's base, the sug­ar work­ers, be­ing dis­re­spect­ed.He said the res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al leas­es that have been is­sued to the ex-Ca­roni work­ers are "not worth the pa­per" they are print­ed on.

Ma­haraj, who de­clared that he was "blast­ed vex," tore a copy of a res­i­den­tial lease dur­ing his speech.He said the work­ers were be­trayed and should have re­ceived deeds of con­veyance not leas­es.The deeds, he said, would give them own­er­ship of the lands un­like the leas­es which come with stip­u­la­tions. He said if the work­ers breach the stip­u­la­tions the land can be tak­en away from them."They pro­vok­ing me," Ma­haraj de­clared.

Yes­ter­day Pan­day urged the work­ers to press the UNC ex­ec­u­tive to call in­ter­nal elec­tions in the par­ty, which he said, were "long over­due."He al­so urged them to con­test the elec­tions and en­sure that it is free and fair. "You must not al­low what hap­pened in the 2010 to hap­pen again," he said.He said the Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment is no dif­fer­ent from the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) since it has turned its back on the very peo­ple–the sug­ar work­ers, who put them in pow­er.

The sug­ar work­ers, he said, nev­er ex­pect­ed that the PP would have be­trayed them."The PP gov­ern­ment is ten times worse that their for­mer tor­men­tors," Pan­day told ex-Ca­roni work­ers.Pan­day said the cur­rent UNC is not the UNC that the sug­ar work­ers gave their blood, sweat and tears to build and they must re­claim what is theirs."You must take back your par­ty, you must that back what is yours, what you gave birth too," he urged.

He told the ex-Ca­roni work­ers that they are be­ing dis­re­spect­ed by the cur­rent UNC ex­ec­u­tive and the gov­ern­ment."The time has come for you to stand up and protest. They treat you like dogs be­cause they be­lieve that you will be sat­is­fied with bones," Pan­day de­clared.

He de­scribed the res­i­den­tial and agri­cul­tur­al leas­es that were be­ing dis­trib­uted to the work­ers as a "con game" since no bank would ac­cept the lease as se­cu­ri­ty for loans.

He al­so ques­tioned the draft­ing of the leas­es and the tim­ing of the dis­tri­b­u­tion of the leas­es, 441 of which were hand­ed out last Wednes­day in Cou­va.Pan­day stressed the need for con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form so promis­es made by par­ties, such as the those made by the UNC to the for­mer work­ers, will be en­shrined in law and if they breach the promis­es they will be break­ing a con­tract.

...'Take back the UNC'

In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er says if the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) rids it­self of the Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ex­ec­u­tive then his par­ty will re-con­sid­er its rel­e­vance in T&T pol­i­tics.Warn­er made the state­ment last af­ter­noon as he spoke with re­porters at the close of an All Trinidad Gen­er­al Work­ers Trade Union cane farm­ers con­fer­ence at Rien­zi Com­plex, Cou­va.

The ILP leader at­tend­ed the con­fer­ence which fea­tured speech­es from for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Ramesh Lawrence Ma­haraj.Both Pan­day and Ma­haraj called on the cane farm­ers and ex-Ca­roni work­ers at­tend­ing the con­fer­ence to take back the UNC from the Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ex­ec­u­tive.

They main­tained that the par­ty has lost its prin­ci­ples and has turned its back on the sug­ar work­ers, all of whom gave the UNC their sup­port to get them in­to gov­ern­ment.Warn­er shared their view.He said Pan­day and Ma­haraj made the point that gov­ern­ment has "de­ceived the peo­ple, has pulled a con job on them and they made the point al­so the UNC of to­day is not the UNC of yes­ter­day that they know, that they be­longed to."

Warn­er said Pan­day was right to say the UNC that they knew would not have put up Khadi­jah Ameen to go against him (in the Ch­agua­nas By-elec­tion)."The fact is when I formed a par­ty, the par­ty was formed against the UNC (Per­sad-Bisses­sar-led ex­ec­u­tive). When they UNC is locked in a room then we shall sit down and look to see if we should have an ILP or not," Warn­er said.Warn­er ad­mit­ted that even though he is the leader of his own po­lit­i­cal par­ty, "I nev­er left the old UNC. I left Kam­la UNC."

"Kam­la UNC is a dif­fer­ent UNC en­tire­ly and ILP was formed in protest against Kam­la UNC, Kam­la, Khadi­jah, Mooni­lal and Suraj Ram­bachan. That is their UNC. Pan­day UNC (which) Pan­day asked me to join I have nev­er left that UNC and if ever the on­ly UNC comes back then we will sit down and see whether the ILP will still be rel­e­vant or not," Warn­er said.

The ILP leader said he was im­pressed with yes­ter­day's con­fer­ence and be­lieved that Pan­day and Ma­haraj, once his sworn en­e­mies, spoke "ex­treme­ly well."Warn­er, who was joined by his deputy po­lit­i­cal lead­ers An­na De­onar­ine and Lyn­di­ra Ou­dit, was mobbed by sug­ar work­ers who shook his hand and wel­comed him back to Rien­zi Com­plex.It was the first time he re­turned to the UNC hal­lowed grounds af­ter form­ing his own par­ty ear­li­er this year.