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Pres­i­dent Car­mona: Use Pan­chay­at sys­tem more

On the ob­ser­vance of In­di­an Ar­rival Day to­day, Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona says the in­dige­nous In­di­an cul­ture brought by in­den­tured labour­ers ben­e­fit­ted not on­ly T&T but the world.

In his In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage, Car­mona said East In­di­an cul­ture has pro­duced dou­bles, Tri­ni roti and cur­ry blend and chut­ney mu­sic.He said cit­i­zens must re­mem­ber the jour­ney of the East In­di­an fore­fa­thers dur­ing the cur­rent times of eco­nom­ic chal­lengesHe said the East In­di­an pres­ence in T&T has al­so had a great in­flu­ence on the Caribbean way of life.

Ac­cord­ing to Car­mona the "Pan­chay­at" was brought to the re­gion by the East In­di­an in­den­tured labour­ers.He said the "pan­chay­at" was pos­si­bly one of the ear­li­est man­i­fes­ta­tions of me­di­a­tion and al­ter­na­tive dis­pute res­o­lu­tion (ADR).

Car­mona said the pan­chay­at sys­tem is struc­tured com­mu­ni­ty me­di­a­tion at work and can be an im­por­tant fea­ture of restora­tive jus­tice in the Crim­i­nal Jus­tice Sys­tem. Car­mona, a for­mer crim­i­nal judge and a strong ad­vo­cate of restora­tive jus­tice, said he used that "sys­tem at the end of the tri­al, some­times up­on con­vic­tion, to ar­rive at a just and fair sen­tence or penal­ty."

"The pan­chay­at sys­tem should be used more in T&T to set­tle many in­stances of vi­o­lence, crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty and so­cial hos­til­i­ty, adding that T&T's great­est re­source was its hu­man re­source."

PM Row­ley: Ship of State will not desta­bilised

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the abil­i­ty of cit­i­zens of this coun­try to unite in di­ver­si­ty was one of the na­tion's great­est suc­cess­es.In his In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage, Row­ley said that was greater than the suc­cess­es in acad­e­mia, diplo­ma­cy, mu­sic, fash­ion and sport.

In­di­an Ar­rival Day is be­ing ob­served an­nu­al­ly mark­ing the ar­rival of the East In­di­an in­den­tured labours to this coun­try. This year marks the 171st an­niver­sary of their ar­rival.

"We must be jus­ti­fi­ably proud of our­selves for our en­vi­able abil­i­ty to live to­geth­er, in uni­ty, un­der God."He said T&T was a bet­ter coun­try from re­li­gious ob­ser­vances such as Eid-ul-Fitr and Di­vali.

"Our East In­di­an broth­ers and sis­ters have made out­stand­ing and in­valu­able con­tri­bu­tions to the so­cio-eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment of T&T."

Row­ley said while the coun­try con­tin­ues to grap­ple with un­ac­cept­able lev­els of crime and crim­i­nal be­hav­iour the pop­u­la­tion was not pre­pared to give in to the crim­i­nal el­e­ments.He said his Gov­ern­ment "will work tire­less­ly to en­sure that the ship of State is not desta­bilised."

He called on cit­i­zens to "recom­mit to mak­ing T&T a coun­try which stands as a last­ing ex­am­ple of uni­ty and strength in di­ver­si­ty."

Kam­la: Let's pre­serve our coun­try

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, in her In­di­an Ar­rival Day mes­sage, is call­ing on cit­i­zens to do all they can to pre­serve the gains ac­quired by the na­tion over the past years.Per­sad-Bisses­sar said cit­i­zens have two choic­es: to bare­ly ex­ist and sur­vive as sep­a­rate groups or to stand to­geth­er as a na­tion.

She said, "As the na­tion ob­serves In­di­an Ar­rival Day to­day, cit­i­zens will do well to re­mem­ber that T&T is a land of many peo­ple, those in­dige­nous to our land and those who al­so ar­rived un­der stark­ly dif­fer­ent con­di­tions from the great civil­i­sa­tions of the world, Eu­ro­peans, Africans, Chi­nese, In­di­ans, the Mid­dle East and else­where."

She said In­di­an Ar­rival Day of­fers peo­ple of In­di­an ori­gin an op­por­tu­ni­ty for re­flec­tion about the jour­ney and the foot­steps of their an­ces­tors and those from oth­er ori­gins an op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­flect up­on the jour­ney and foot­steps of their own an­ces­tors.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said such re­flec­tions will make T&T bet­ter able to un­der­stand and ap­pre­ci­ate the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of "all our fore­fa­thers as they laboured to build the unique mod­el na­tion we have be­come, a na­tion demon­strat­ing uni­ty in di­ver­si­ty."