Sascha wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Three years af­ter the hor­rif­ic Paria div­ing tragedy, the fam­i­lies of the four de­ceased divers and the lone sur­vivor are still cry­ing out for jus­tice and com­pen­sa­tion.

Fol­low­ing a wreath-lay­ing cer­e­mo­ny and mo­tor­cade held by the Paria Jus­tice Com­mit­tee, lone sur­vivor Christo­pher Boodram was among sev­er­al speak­ers who ad­dressed col­leagues, fam­i­lies, friends, politi­cians, and well-wish­ers who gath­ered in front of Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny at the Pointe-a-Pierre round­about yes­ter­day to mark the an­niver­sary of the tragedy on Feb­ru­ary 25, 2022.

Dur­ing the event, pho­tos of Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young were burnt at the round­about.

Be­fore read­ing from his pre­pared speech, Boodram stat­ed that he was not a mem­ber of any po­lit­i­cal par­ty, but con­clud­ed by pledg­ing his sup­port for the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress in the gen­er­al elec­tion.

Boodram, who had re­cent­ly en­dorsed Cou­va MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh to con­test his seat in the up­com­ing elec­tion, com­plained that for the last nine years, the coun­try has been a liv­ing night­mare, with work­ers in var­i­ous sec­tors be­ing dis­ad­van­taged while the Gov­ern­ment re­mains un­scathed.

“Our work­ing class have been dis­ad­van­taged—from the steel mill, Petrotrin, nurs­es, all gov­ern­ment work­ers as a mat­ter of fact. Every work­er but not the Gov­ern­ment. They get their raise, but we have to tight­en our belt, as the Prime Min­is­ter al­ways says.

“For me, it’s sim­ple—the code is yel­low. It may not be guar­an­teed, but I’m sure life would be bet­ter than liv­ing un­der the PNM led by Stu­art Young, the man who al­lowed and agreed with leav­ing my broth­ers in the pipeline. Come this elec­tion, let him pay for it—vote for the UNC.”

Thank­ing God for sav­ing his life, he said that for three years, the hor­rif­ic in­ci­dent has been re­play­ing in his mind, and he pon­ders what more he could have done to save his Land and Ma­rine Con­tract­ing Ser­vices (LM­CS) col­leagues Fyzal Kur­ban, Kaz­im Ali Jr, Yusuf Hen­ry, and Rishi Na­gas­sar.

He said the Gov­ern­ment would try to jus­ti­fy the clo­sure of Petrotrin at any cost to make a prof­it and, as a re­sult, sac­ri­ficed his broth­ers.

Boodram, who met with Act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin on Thurs­day, ques­tioned why, af­ter three years, they were on­ly now try­ing to lo­cate a dive spe­cial­ist to as­sist in the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

“Af­ter speak­ing with the com­mis­sion on Thurs­day, I re­alised that the COE was for nought be­cause the ev­i­dence can­not be used. They said that they are look­ing for a dive spe­cial­ist ex­ter­nal­ly. So you mean to tell us that af­ter three years, you can’t find one? The on­ly peo­ple who ben­e­fit­ted from this were the lawyers. Trinidad and To­ba­go is re­al­ly not a re­al place.”

Com­mit­tee mem­ber Kelvin Lalchan read a speech on be­half of Hen­ry’s moth­er, Nicole Greenidge, who could not at­tend the event.

She said that T&T must nev­er for­get the dread­ful in­ci­dent that left them dis­ap­point­ed, in grief, and with a life­time of scars. The moth­er al­so lament­ed the bla­tant dis­re­gard shown to the fam­i­lies by the Gov­ern­ment and Paria.

Na­gas­sar’s wife, Vanes­sa Kussie, Kur­ban’s wife, Sal­isha, and Ali’s fa­ther, Kaz­im, were among oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers in at­ten­dance.

Fam­i­lies seek­ing more than $5M in com­pen­sa­tion

... Not even a dol­lar has been giv­en to these peo­ple–Ra­mad­har

At­tor­ney Prakash Ra­mad­har, who is rep­re­sent­ing some of the de­ceased divers’ fam­i­lies, said the Paria tragedy was one of the main rea­sons he de­cid­ed to re­turn to pol­i­tics. Speak­ing at the event yes­ter­day, Ra­mad­har said the fam­i­lies con­tin­ue to suf­fer with no com­pen­sa­tion or jus­tice.

Ra­mad­har, leader of the Con­gress of the Peo­ple, who is con­sid­er­ing a coali­tion with the UNC, said he re­turned to pol­i­tics in large part be­cause of this in­jus­tice.

While he did not in­di­cate when they would ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion, he said they would be seek­ing more than the ini­tial sum of $5 mil­lion.

“I got per­mis­sion from my clients not to file yet, but when we do file, if they think the $5 mil­lion we asked for is un­rea­son­able—wait and see.”

Ex­plain­ing that he would be seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for loss of earn­ings and the emo­tion­al de­struc­tion of fam­i­lies and the na­tion, he said,

“You can­not put a re­al num­ber on that, and if they wish to chal­lenge it, we will take it to the Privy Coun­cil. But they want that be­cause let me tell you why—the Prime Min­is­ter, he’s very able at fool­ing peo­ple, at de­ceiv­ing them, to say this is a mat­ter for the lawyers. It is not. It is a mat­ter for the Gov­ern­ment.”

Dur­ing his tenure as a min­is­ter, he re­called that when­ev­er there was a tragedy in the na­tion, the first thing they would do was look af­ter the fam­i­lies and then ad­dress the le­gal tech­ni­cal­i­ties and bu­reau­cra­cy.

“It is sick­en­ing to me that the third an­niver­sary is with­in the week, and not even a dol­lar has been giv­en to these peo­ple,” Ra­mad­har said. The divers died trag­i­cal­ly af­ter be­ing sucked in­side a Paria pipeline in the Pointe-a-Pierre har­bour in Feb­ru­ary 2022. Fol­low­ing a Com­mis­sion of En­quiry that rec­om­mend­ed cor­po­rate manslaugh­ter charges against Paria, Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard de­ter­mined that a crim­i­nal in­ves­ti­ga­tion should be con­duct­ed, and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice has since launched an in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

The Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Agency has brought 15 charges against Paria’s gen­er­al man­ag­er, Mush­taq Mo­hammed, ter­mi­nal op­er­a­tions man­ag­er Collin Piper, LM­CS own­er Kaz­im Ali, Paria, and LM­CS in the In­dus­tri­al Court. The mat­ter is cur­rent­ly pend­ing.