RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Manohar Ram­saran, the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress min­is­ter who ap­point­ed a task force in 1997 to in­ves­ti­gate op­er­a­tions at chil­dren’s homes, says the T&T Ju­di­cial sys­tem was so dys­func­tion­al at that time that he knew al­leged abusers would walk and nev­er face con­se­quences.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Thurs­day, Ram­saran said the TTPS was nev­er held to ac­count and court cas­es were so lengthy that he knew pur­su­ing pros­e­cu­tion against per­pe­tra­tors of crim­i­nal acts against chil­dren at State homes was not the way for­ward.

In­stead of lob­by­ing for ar­rests, Ram­saran said he con­cen­trat­ed on bring­ing leg­is­la­tion to Par­lia­ment that would pro­tect chil­dren and en­force in­spec­tions at the homes which were run with sub­ven­tions from the State. 

“It was nev­er my in­ten­tion to pros­e­cute any­body. I was look­ing at cor­rect­ing the wrong rather than deal­ing with crim­i­nals. I have no re­grets about not pros­e­cut­ing any­body,” Ram­saran said.

He said two years af­ter the re­port be­came pub­lic, the UNC brought five pieces of leg­is­la­tion which were passed in Par­lia­ment.

He al­so said that the then-prime min­is­ter Based Pan­day “ran a tight ship.”

Min­is­ters were not al­lowed to talk out of turn or share Cab­i­net doc­u­ments and they could not even take doc­u­ments at home, he said.

Yet still, Ram­saran said he passed the re­port to Hilton Guy, who lat­er be­came po­lice com­mis­sion­er, but noth­ing was done.

Un­like now, when so­cial me­dia al­lows every­thing in the pub­lic glare, Manohar said many re­ports were kept hid­den from the pub­lic.

“When you go to make a re­port, po­lice could lock you up if they felt like it. No­body would ques­tion the po­lice,” he added.

He said even if in­ves­ti­ga­tions were done in­to the Sab­ga re­port and charges were laid, it was ex­pect­ed that peo­ple would walk.

This was ex­act­ly what had hap­pened when a 16-year-old res­i­dent from the Shri Jay­alak­sh­mi home ap­peared be­fore the courts for mo­lest­ing five chil­dren. Rather than face the con­se­quences for his crimes, he was tak­en back to the home to live among his vic­tims.

Say­ing the T&T Ju­di­cial sys­tem was bro­ken, cas­es were lengthy and po­lice were in­com­pe­tent, Ram­saran said his fo­cus then was to bring leg­is­la­tion to pro­tect chil­dren. 

He said it was the po­lice who should have act­ed on the re­port, not­ing that it was well cir­cu­lat­ed in the then gov­ern­ment.

“Look­ing back, I have no re­grets. I would have done the same thing be­cause back then, I de­cid­ed to bring the laws to pro­tect the chil­dren,” Ram­saran said.

He said the po­lice must now act on the re­port.

“I want to com­mend the Prime Min­is­ter (Kei­th Row­ley) for bring­ing the po­lice in­to this. It must be in­ves­ti­gat­ed fair­ly. Al­so, I am glad to see politi­cians from all sides are get­ting in­volved now. Maybe my job is now bear­ing fruit. I could not have done it on my own and I nev­er get the sup­port back then, but now so many peo­ple are com­ing for­ward. Maybe now is the time to end this scourge of chil­dren be­ing abused,” he added.

For­mer min­is­ter Chan­dresh Shar­ma con­firmed the re­port was laid in Par­lia­ment and Dr Fuad Khan, who was al­so part of that gov­ern­ment, said there were sev­er­al re­ports of abuse at chil­dren’s homes and this was why a task force was set up to probe the al­le­ga­tions.

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