RYAN BA­CHOO

Lead Ed­i­tor - News­gath­er­ing

ryan.ba­choo@cnc3.co.tt

Amid a wave of in­tense pub­lic demon­stra­tions in the cap­i­tal city, a mas­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive youth ini­tia­tive is seek­ing to am­pli­fy mes­sages of uni­ty, de­clar­ing that the col­lec­tive voice for peace must be­come loud­er than the re­gion’s strug­gles with crime and vi­o­lence.

Speak­ing to the Sun­day Guardian yes­ter­day, Ma­su­dah Muham­mad, di­rec­tor for Youth Af­fairs and Mo­bil­i­sa­tion in the Net­work of NGOs of Trinidad and To­ba­go for the Ad­vance­ment of Women, un­der­scored the crit­i­cal tim­ing of the re­gion­al Youth Em­pow­er­ment Peace Walk.

The peace walk took place dur­ing a tense pe­ri­od for Port-of-Spain. The cap­i­tal has been rocked by high­ly charged demon­stra­tions fol­low­ing the con­tro­ver­sial po­lice-in­volved shoot­ing in St Au­gus­tine that claimed the life of Joshua Sama­roo and left his part­ner, Ka­ia Sealy, paral­ysed. Pub­lic out­rage in­ten­si­fied dra­mat­i­cal­ly af­ter it was an­nounced that Sealy is ex­pect­ed to be charged with manslaugh­ter and firearm charges, spark­ing fiery protests out­side the Of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and a heavy, ze­ro-tol­er­ance law en­force­ment re­sponse un­der emer­gency reg­u­la­tions.

How­ev­er, Muham­mad clar­i­fied that the peace walk yes­ter­day was not a re­ac­tionary move­ment born out of the cur­rent civic un­rest.

“It was in­ter­est­ing be­cause we were plan­ning this peace walk long be­fore that,” Muham­mad ex­plained, de­scrib­ing the con­ver­gence of events as a poignant co­in­ci­dence. “I think it’s just the voic­es of the pop­u­la­tion right now. They’re just cry­ing out for peace. And so this walk kind of re­in­forces that peace.”

Or­gan­is­ers co­op­er­at­ed with law en­force­ment ahead of the event. Re­spond­ing to se­cu­ri­ty di­rec­tives from the po­lice, who have main­tained height­ened anx­i­ety over pub­lic gath­er­ings in the city cen­tre, the Net­work of NGOs agreed to com­plete­ly al­ter their planned route. In­stead of as­sem­bling at the tra­di­tion­al hotspot of Wood­ford Square, or­gan­is­ers seam­less­ly shift­ed the march to the perime­ter of the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

“The po­lice did ap­prove for us to have the march,” Muham­mad not­ed. “How­ev­er, we had to kind of move the march from Wood­ford Square to around the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah. So we had a lit­tle shift in venue, but we have the same pro­ceed­ings.”

When ques­tioned on whether or not con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to free ex­pres­sion were be­ing af­fect­ed by the re­cent re­stric­tions, Muham­mad main­tained a bal­anced per­spec­tive on na­tion­al cul­ture.

“Free­dom of speech has al­ways been part of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­ture,” she said. “Whether it’s a peace­ful voice or a voice that is not peace, we still have a voice in Trinidad and To­ba­go. And that is what we are rep­re­sent­ing to­day.”

Mark­ing the 13th com­mem­o­ra­tion of the De­c­la­ra­tion of World Peace, the event serves as a mas­sive col­lab­o­ra­tive front, unit­ing youth del­e­ga­tions from over ten is­lands—in­clud­ing Ja­maica, Do­mini­ca, Grena­da, St Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Haiti—along­side rep­re­sen­ta­tives from Wash­ing­ton, DC, and a si­mul­ta­ne­ous walk in To­ba­go.

“We hope to bring mes­sages of peace, uni­ty, and em­pow­er­ment,” Muham­mad stat­ed. “When we look at the crime and the vi­o­lence, we can have a voice that is loud­er than the vi­o­lence.”