It is the great­est irony that on the oc­ca­sion of our 57th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary that our own Gov­ern­ment has been do­ing the same as our colo­nial op­pres­sors by us­ing the ar­cha­ic charge of sedi­tion to tor­ment a po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent. Clear­ly mas­sa day is not done!

The Great Dr Mar­tin Luther King said, “We all came in on dif­fer­ent ships, but we’re all in the same boat now”. This state­ment rings so true af­ter 57 years of in­de­pen­dence. We are Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans; we can­not be and should not try to be any­one else. While we must nev­er for­get our an­ces­tral lin­eages, cus­toms and cul­tures, we must strive to build a so­ci­ety that is dis­tinct to our unique cir­cum­stances.

In the years lead­ing up to this day in 1962, we as­pired, as a na­tion, to­wards the free­dom to chart our own course. We as­pired to throw off the chains of colo­nial servi­tude and op­pres­sion and build a de­mo­c­ra­t­ic so­ci­ety to ben­e­fit all peo­ple.

There­fore, it is the great­est irony that on the oc­ca­sion of our 57th In­de­pen­dence An­niver­sary that our own Gov­ern­ment is do­ing the same as our colo­nial op­pres­sors by us­ing the ar­cha­ic charge of sedi­tion to tor­ment a po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent. Clear­ly, mas­sa day is not done!

To­day, on the 57th an­niver­sary of our in­de­pen­dence, it is crit­i­cal that we ask our­selves: what have we al­lowed our so­ci­ety to be­come? Have we thrown off the shack­les of colo­nial tyran­ny and now al­lowed our­selves to again find our coun­try un­der sim­i­lar gov­er­nance? Are our news ed­i­tors, jour­nal­ists, union­ists, re­li­gious lead­ers, civ­il so­ci­ety lead­ers, con­cerned cit­i­zens, po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tors and non-gov­ern­ment politi­cians now be­ing tac­it­ly in­tim­i­dat­ed by the re­cent res­ur­rec­tion of the sedi­tion laws?

Wat­son Duke was charged with sedi­tion in re­la­tion to com­ments made dur­ing a tele­vi­sion in­ter­view last No­vem­ber in which he urged work­ers of TSTT, TTEC and WASA to be “pre­pared to die. “This is your be­lief folks, this is your fam­i­ly and I am send­ing the mes­sage clear, let Row­ley them know that the day they come for us in WASA, we are pre­pared to die and the morgue would be pick­ing up peo­ple,” he was quot­ed as say­ing.

Fitzger­ald Hinds at a PNM meet­ing said: “I said to my col­leagues, as a younger par­lia­men­tar­i­an then, I said the UNC is bad­ly wound­ed. We need to fin­ish them out. Kill them dead. I want you to un­der­stand that on No­vem­ber 28, you have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to dri­ve a PNM bal­isi­er deep in­to the hearts of the wicked UNC vam­pires. Take a stake with a bal­isi­er on top and dri­ve it deep with­in their heart and fin­ish them off once and for all.”

One speak­er says be pre­pared to die for his union mem­bers while the oth­er in­vokes his sup­port­ers to kill them dead. Which is worse? Yet there was no in­ves­ti­ga­tion, no charge, no protest from the gov­ern­ment for one while the oth­er is be­ing pros­e­cut­ed and per­se­cut­ed.

What ex­act­ly is the spe­cif­ic cri­te­ria that is be­ing used to de­ter­mine what is free speech and what is sedi­tious af­ter 57 years of in­de­pen­dence? What are the cri­te­ria to de­ter­mine who is charged and who is not? I do my du­ty as Op­po­si­tion leader and ask these ques­tions so as to pro­tect all pa­tri­ot­ic cit­i­zens from run­ning afoul of this ar­cha­ic law and an ever-in­creas­ing op­pres­sive Gov­ern­ment.

To­day, the stan­dard of liv­ing of our cit­i­zens con­tin­ues to de­crease at an alarm­ing rate. To­day the dreams of many of cit­i­zens are be­ing shat­tered and their true po­ten­tial ig­nored by this Gov­ern­ment’s fail­ure to eq­ui­tably ad­dress the needs of the pop­u­la­tion. Many of the poli­cies, acts and even in­ac­tion in some cir­cum­stances by this Gov­ern­ment have led to this na­tion’s im­age be­ing tar­nished and the way of life we once knew is con­stant­ly be­ing erod­ed.

I call on the gov­ern­ment to re­mem­ber their con­sti­tu­tion­al re­spon­si­bil­i­ties and sus­pend the modus operan­di of the last four years which has seen them op­er­ate as a gov­ern­ment for “the few and not the many”. I call on the gov­ern­ment to be in­spired by the ac­com­plish­ments, dy­namism as well as the world-class tal­ents of our peo­ple and do all in their pow­er to en­sure that each cit­i­zen is em­pow­ered to be part of na­tion-build­ing.

To­day how can we tru­ly cel­e­brate in­de­pen­dence when we see some of the same re­pres­sive be­hav­iours that were used to tor­ment our pre-in­de­pen­dence lead­ers and cit­i­zen­ry be­ing reem­ployed to­day. Let us re­mem­ber those that came be­fore us and who helped to pave the path we now walk up­on. We pay trib­ute to those lead­ers and seek to build on what they have laid for us.

As we mark this day which all cit­i­zens should hold dear to them, giv­en its his­toric as well as life-defin­ing sig­nif­i­cance, it is al­so a day for na­tion­al self-in­tro­spec­tion as every cit­i­zen is called to crit­i­cal­ly as­sess the role they have, and the role they should be play­ing in our na­tion’s de­vel­op­ment.

It is our re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to now help pave the way for the next gen­er­a­tion.

I have faith in the cit­i­zens of our na­tion, in their strength, their in­no­v­a­tive spir­it, and their courage. I call on all cit­i­zens to re­ject those who seek to pro­mote di­vi­sive­ness, op­pres­sion and tyran­ny in our so­ci­ety.

We are the cre­ators of our own fu­tures.

We the peo­ple of Trinidad and To­ba­go are the mas­ters of our des­tiny.

I wish all cit­i­zens a very hap­py and re­flec­tive In­de­pen­dence Day.