Ali­cia Llanos

Pres­i­dent of the Fed­er­a­tion of In­de­pen­dent Trade Unions (Fi­tun) and so­cial ac­tivist David Ab­du­lah has said that the state­ment by Min­is­ter of Hous­ing, Plan­ning and the En­vi­ron­ment Emi­ly Dick-Forde that cit­i­zens should be ashamed of them­selves for "hound­ing" down Calder Hart says "a lot about where her val­ues lie."

Dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, Ab­du­lah said it was not the coun­try that should be ashamed. He said it was the min­is­ter who should feel the full bur­den of shame. He said one had to point out that her con­cern was for Hart and his fam­i­ly, not the cit­i­zens of T&T who had been de­nied prop­er health­care, wa­ter, pro­tec­tion against crime, and the chil­dren who are de­nied a steady ed­u­ca­tion be­cause of crum­bling schools. He said while she "feels hurt for Hart and his fam­i­ly, she feels no hurt for her cit­i­zens."

When ques­tioned about Dick-Forde's com­ment that the na­tion's soul be­ing a stake for hound­ing Hart, Ab­du­lah quot­ed lyrics from Win­ston "Gyp­sy" Pe­ters' ca­lyp­so–Soul of Na­tion, say­ing, "who tief­ing the soul of the na­tion?" He said the soul of the na­tion had long been stolen and de­stroyed by the scan­dal of cor­rup­tion. "It is clear that Hart had stole the soul of the na­tion," Ab­du­lah said. Al­so com­ment­ing of Dick-Forde's state­ment, so­cial ac­tivist Stephen Cadiz said the min­is­ter was out of place with her com­ment. He said one thing the na­tion should nev­er be ashamed of is de­mand­ing jus­tice and deal­ing with the is­sues that af­fect them.