DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Con­dem­na­tion con­tin­ues to mount against Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) PRO Dr Kirk Meighoo, over his claims that Dr Er­ic Williams was not Trinidad and To­ba­go’s first prime min­is­ter.

Meighoo made the claim dur­ing the na­tion’s 63rd In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary over the week­end, say­ing Bar­ba­di­an Sir Grant­ley Adams was, in fact, the per­son who ac­tu­al­ly T&T’s first prime min­is­ter. He claimed Williams was mere­ly the pre­mier of T&T with­in the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion and that the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment’s claims that he was the fa­ther of the na­tion were a myth to make him out to be the bea­con of Caribbean uni­ty.

How­ev­er, an­a­lysts and politi­cians from across the po­lit­i­cal spec­trum de­nounced his re­marks.

Af­ter this ini­tial out­burst of crit­i­cism, Meighoo lat­er clar­i­fied that Sir Grant­ley was nev­er Prime Min­is­ter of T&T, but of the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion, which he main­tains of­fered the best path to in­de­pen­dence.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Derek Ram­samooj joined that group yes­ter­day, say­ing Meighoo’s state­ments amount­ed to pro­pa­gan­da aimed at rewrit­ing the coun­try’s po­lit­i­cal his­to­ry. He warned that such re­vi­sion­ism dis­played “the signs of an au­thor­i­tar­i­an leader seek­ing to im­pose a to­tal­i­tar­i­an state on an un­sus­pect­ing pop­u­la­tion,” adding the sen­ti­ments should be “re­ject­ed, dis­missed and com­plete­ly vil­i­fied in the strongest pos­si­ble man­ner.” Ram­samooj added that the state­ment raised con­cerns about up­com­ing Re­pub­lic Day pro­nounce­ments.

Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) stal­wart Fer­die Fer­reira, who was ex­pelled from the par­ty by Williams in 1980, de­scribed Meighoo’s com­ments as “ir­rev­o­ca­bly stu­pid.” He called it “un­for­tu­nate” that a se­nior of­fi­cial of the gov­ern­ing par­ty would make such state­ments and crit­i­cised the UNC lead­er­ship, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, for not ask­ing Meighoo to with­draw or cor­rect his re­marks.

“This is part of our his­to­ry and any at­tempt to dis­tort it or dis­re­gard the facts is noth­ing short of be­ing con­temp­tu­ous, and this guy (is) ac­cus­tomed to mak­ing these ir­re­spon­si­ble, reck­less, in­cor­rect state­ments. One is tempt­ed to ask if that is a re­flec­tion of the think­ing of the par­ty,” Fer­reira said.

For­mer UNC min­is­ter Dr Bhoe Tewarie, who re­cent­ly au­thored a book on T&T’s in­de­pen­dence his­to­ry, al­so re­ject­ed Meighoo’s claims. He af­firmed that Williams was the na­tion’s first prime min­is­ter and urged those in po­si­tions of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to ex­er­cise cau­tion with their words.

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les mean­while ac­cused the gov­ern­ing par­ty of sow­ing di­vi­sion and con­demned Meighoo’s as­ser­tion that Adams was T&Ts prime min­is­ter be­fore Williams. She de­scribed his post as “ma­li­cious­ly in­ac­cu­rate,” claim­ing it at­tempt­ed to dis­tort his­tor­i­cal fact, at­tack na­tion­al sym­bols, and be­lit­tle the hard-won lega­cy of the na­tion’s In­de­pen­dence.

She was re­spond­ing to Meighoo’s claim that the PNM had re­placed the West In­dies Fed­er­a­tion flag with one dom­i­nat­ed by the par­ty’s sig­na­ture colour, red.

“The UNC’s at­tempt to politi­cise our na­tion­al flag is an­oth­er shock­ing and reck­less dis­tor­tion. The red, white, and black were not cho­sen by any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, but by a na­tion­al com­mit­tee chaired by Sir El­lis Clarke. Red sym­bol­is­es vi­tal­i­ty, black rep­re­sents strength and uni­ty, and white re­flects the sea and the equal­i­ty of all cit­i­zens. These colours were cho­sen to unite, not di­vide. To claim oth­er­wise is to tar­nish a sym­bol that means the world to all cit­i­zens of this great na­tion,” Beck­les said.

Beck­les fur­ther stressed that T&T’s in­de­pen­dence was the re­sult of de­lib­er­ate ac­tion and strong lead­er­ship by Williams, who led a del­e­ga­tion to Lon­don to ne­go­ti­ate sov­er­eign­ty.

“This cul­mi­nat­ed in the pas­sage of the In­de­pen­dence Act by the British Par­lia­ment on 30th Au­gust, and the birth of our in­de­pen­dent na­tion at mid­night on 31st Au­gust, 1962. To re­duce this mo­men­tous achieve­ment to re­gion­al fail­ure is to in­sult the in­tel­li­gence and sac­ri­fice of our peo­ple.”

She al­so re­ject­ed Meighoo’s claims that Williams was racist when he ref­er­enced his 1958 “re­cal­ci­trant mi­nor­i­ty” speech di­rect­ed at the Sanatan Dhar­ma Ma­ha Sab­ha.

“This se­lec­tive quo­ta­tion is de­lib­er­ate­ly mis­lead­ing, as it side­steps the fact that Dr Williams was re­spond­ing to po­lit­i­cal lead­ers who were open­ly ad­vo­cat­ing for eth­nic di­vi­sion. His sharp words were di­rect­ed at those di­vi­sive po­lit­i­cal po­si­tions, nev­er to­ward an eth­nic group. To present this to­day as ‘proof’ of racial an­i­mus is a dan­ger­ous ma­nip­u­la­tion of his­to­ry, and a be­tray­al of hon­est dis­course,” Beck­les said.

The op­po­si­tion leader al­so crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar for dis­tanc­ing her­self and the Gov­ern­ment from In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions, as she had done dur­ing her 10 years in op­po­si­tion, not­ing that she did not at­tend nor send a rep­re­sen­ta­tive to the In­ter-Re­li­gious Or­gan­i­sa­tion’s Na­tion­al Day of Prayer at Di­vali Na­gar on In­de­pen­dence Day. Beck­les called on the pub­lic to re­ject at­tempts to di­vide the na­tion and safe­guard the coun­try’s his­tor­i­cal truth.

“No amount of spin can un­do the facts. Trinidad and To­ba­go’s his­to­ry stands firm, and so must we. It is un­for­tu­nate that we are led in ab­sen­tia by a silent, un­pa­tri­ot­ic Prime Min­is­ter who can­not stand on her own words; how­ev­er, as al­ways, the na­tion can de­pend on the PNM to en­sure that the true sto­ry of our na­tion lives on, for the ben­e­fit of gen­er­a­tions to come,” she said.

For­mer Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so con­demned Meighoo on so­cial me­dia, la­belling him a “lu­natic” and crit­i­cis­ing the Prime Min­is­ter for re­fus­ing to re­spond to his com­ments, which she de­scribed as a non-is­sue.

“It must be a non-is­sue for her be­cause she fa­cil­i­tates the re­vis­ing of his­to­ry and facts. It might be a non-is­sue for her but it is every­thing for the rest of us,” Row­ley said in a Face­book post.

He high­light­ed Williams’ con­tri­bu­tions to the na­tion, in­clud­ing ex­pand­ing ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and hous­ing, while lament­ing the lack of grat­i­tude from some ben­e­fi­cia­ries who al­so gained ac­cess to fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions.

“To­day, the Unit Trust has over sev­en hun­dred thou­sand ac­counts, many of them owned by peo­ple who may nev­er have had a dol­lar of sav­ings and who may nev­er have dreamt of shar­ing in the wealth of our lit­tle na­tion, yet the in­grat­i­tude flows like pus out of many of the ben­e­fi­cia­ries. It might even be said at this junc­ture that those who ben­e­fit­ed the most are in­deed the most un­ap­pre­cia­tive and un­grate­ful.”

For­mer for­eign af­fairs min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne al­so de­nounced Meighoo’s re­marks as “vi­cious lies” and crit­i­cised Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s fail­ure to hold him ac­count­able.

“Sad­ly, in this In­de­pen­dence sea­son, the Prime Min­is­ter’s on­ly re­ac­tion is to pub­licly de­scribe those vi­cious lies as ‘a non-is­sue,’ which is a to­tal in­sult to any­one who has even one ounce of pa­tri­o­tism,” Browne said.

The UNC PRO was ini­tial­ly crit­i­cised by his­to­ri­an Prof Claudius Fer­gus, who re­ject­ed Meighoo’s in­ter­pre­ta­tion, as well as po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Shane Mo­hammed, for­mer prime min­is­ter Stu­art Young, his­to­ri­an and for­mer PNM min­is­ter Dr Lovell Fran­cis, jour­nal­ist Tony Fras­er and Row­ley.