RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For the first time in his­to­ry, Fyz­abad—the bustling oil town which birthed the labour ri­ots—went dead on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day.

Un­like Ce­dros, Ma­yaro and Moru­ga which cel­e­brat­ed Jou­vert with thou­sands of peo­ple, the streets of Fyz­abad re­mained de­void of any ac­tiv­i­ty for Car­ni­val.

And while the po­lice are deny­ing that it shut down Car­ni­val this year, for­mer MP Arthur Sander­son con­firmed that there were no fes­tiv­i­ties.

Re­fer­ring to the emp­ty streets, Sander­son said:

"This is what the streets look like. No­body out­side. This is the first time that Fyz­abad is like that. It baf­fles me that peo­ple did not come out."

But mas man Ru­pert Lopez, aka Body Love, said the po­lice re­stric­tions ham­pered Car­ni­val. Lopez ac­cused the po­lice of go­ing to busi­ness es­tab­lish­ments and warn­ing that there will be no Car­ni­val this year and any­one who puts mu­sic on the pave­ments or en­gages in fes­tiv­i­ties will face the full brunt of the law.

He said the area des­ig­nat­ed for Car­ni­val rev­el­ry was be­tween But­ler Junc­tion and Mar­ket Street.

"That area is too short. Who go­ing to rent a mu­sic truck to go from here to there? That mak­ing no sense," Lopez said.

Fyzabad Main Road is devoid of people on Carnival Tuesday. [Photo courtesy Arthur Sanderson]

Mean­while, sev­er­al peo­ple com­ment­ed about the lack of rev­el­ry in the oil town.

On Face­book, Bran­don Has­matal­ly wrote: "All Fyz­abad had for Car­ni­val was a Spi­der­man yes."

An­oth­er per­son named Ban­ton OG post­ed a pho­to of the emp­ty streets of Fyz­abad on Mon­day night and wrote: "I now touch Fyz­abad. Could some­body tell me where the mon­ey that was al­lo­cat­ed for Car­ni­val? Is this it?"

On Fri­day, Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Er­la Hare­wood-Christo­pher con­firmed that the po­lice had not shut down Car­ni­val in Fyz­abad.

"There is no truth to this. Po­lice of­fi­cers will be present to pro­vide the nec­es­sary se­cu­ri­ty," she said.

When con­tact­ed, MP for Fyz­abad Dr Lack­ram Bo­doe said there was no ban on Car­ni­val.

"No com­plaint came to me and there is no ban as far as I am aware. The po­lice met with all stake­hold­ers seek­ing to gath­er in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing Car­ni­val so they could pro­vide prop­er se­cu­ri­ty mea­sures."

He con­firmed that there were no fes­tiv­i­ties on Car­ni­val Mon­day and Tues­day, al­though the Fyz­abad De­vel­op­ment and Cul­tur­al Com­mit­tee held a queen show last Thurs­day at Thicke Vil­lage.

Head of the Com­mit­tee, Pat­sy Ran­som, said the Com­mit­tee usu­al­ly or­gan­is­es Car­ni­val rev­el­ry in Fyz­abad. How­ev­er, she said this year they could not host any fes­tiv­i­ties apart from the Queen Show as the Com­mit­tee was trans­ferred un­der the um­brel­la of the South­west­ern Re­gion­al Com­mit­tee by the NCC. This um­brel­la body is com­prised of Com­mit­tees from Fyz­abad, La Brea, San­ta Flo­ra, Point Fortin and Ce­dros.

"In Fyz­abad, we con­cen­trat­ed on the queen show and this was a dis­ad­van­tage to Car­ni­val in Fyz­abad, but we could not pro­vide fund­ing, but peo­ple could have still come out with their cos­tumes," she said.

Asked whether the Com­mit­tee re­ceived fund­ing from the NCC and what was done with the fund­ing, Ran­some said:

"I have not re­ceived any fund­ing for Car­ni­val as yet, al­though I did get a call from the Re­gion­al Co­or­di­na­tor that they had a cheque for me."

Ran­some said Fyz­abad and La Brea suf­fered be­cause of this move by the NCC.

"2024 will be dif­fer­ent be­cause we are go­ing to get out of the South­west­ern Com­mit­tee next year be­cause it did not work this year. Dif­fer­ent re­gions like Fyz­abad and La Brea had no Car­ni­val on Mon­day and Tues­day," she said.

Mean­while, de­spite the des­o­la­tion in Fyz­abad, oth­er re­gions in the South cel­e­brat­ed Car­ni­val. In Moru­ga hun­dreds of peo­ple pa­rad­ed through the streets be­tween Basse Terre and Gran Chemin. In Ce­dros, thou­sands of peo­ple par­tic­i­pat­ed in J’Ou­vert, tra­di­tion­al mas and Kid­dies Car­ni­val. The same oc­curred in Ma­yaro.