Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

Af­ter cit­i­zens have been sub­ject­ed to an oner­ous State of Emer­gency for 12 of the past 14 months, democ­ra­cy in T&T is un­der threat from Gov­ern­ment’s des­ig­na­tion of 15 “no-protest” zones, in­clud­ing near the Par­lia­ment, says for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath

“His­to­ry will re­mem­ber this time for whether we stood up while we still could or wait­ed un­til there was noth­ing left to stand for. Be­cause once a pop­u­la­tion be­comes silent, pow­er be­comes fear­less. And pow­er with­out fear of the peo­ple is the most dan­ger­ous force in any coun­try,” Bharath warned in a state­ment yes­ter­day.

Com­ment­ing on the re­cent or­der halt­ing protests in 15 zones - in­clud­ing near the Red House, the Prime Min­is­ter’s of­fice and Min­istries of Fi­nance and Se­cu­ri­ty - Bharath said the death of democ­ra­cy doesn’t on­ly ar­rive as coup at­tempts or via tanks on the streets.

“Democ­ra­cy dies when cit­i­zens be­come afraid to speak and those en­trust­ed with pow­er see crit­i­cism not as a con­sti­tu­tion­al right, but as a threat to be sup­pressed,” he added.

While the SoE has be­come Gov­ern­ment’s failed pol­i­cy on crime, Bharath said, “The re­cent des­ig­na­tion of 15 ‘no- protest zones’ has sent a chill­ing mes­sage to cit­i­zens wish­ing to peace­ful­ly air their griev­ances that the space for pub­lic dis­sent is shrink­ing. This strikes at the heart of our con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy.

“T&T’s Con­sti­tu­tion recog­nis­es free­dom of ex­pres­sion and free­dom of as­sem­bly as fun­da­men­tal rights be­cause the Con­sti­tu­tion’s framers recog­nised that gov­ern­ments can­not be trust­ed to po­lice them­selves. These aren’t gifts grant­ed by politi­cians or priv­i­leges that can be switched on and off de­pend­ing on who’s in of­fice. They are rights be­long­ing to the peo­ple. They ex­ist pre­cise­ly so that cit­i­zens can chal­lenge gov­ern­ments, ex­pose fail­ures and de­mand ac­count­abil­i­ty.”

Bharath said the T&T of to­day “... is bleed­ing with fes­ter­ing wounds that every­one feels. Ter­rorised com­mu­ni­ties suf­fer­ing from mur­der, home in­va­sions and do­mes­tic vi­o­lence, bro­ken fam­i­lies, busi­ness­es verg­ing on col­lapse, thou­sands on the bread­line, youths seek­ing a fu­ture out­side. War on nurs­es, teach­ers, maxi taxi own­ers, busi­ness - on Cari­com. In­stead of war­ring on pover­ty, the Gov­ern­ment has un­leashed war on the poor.”

“And rather than con­fronting these fail­ures, the State is in­creas­ing­ly fo­cused on con­trol­ling the re­ac­tion to its fail­ures,” he added.

“When cit­i­zens com­plain, si­lence them. When cit­i­zens or­gan­ise, re­strict them. When they protest, ar­rest and con­tain them. When peo­ple de­mand an­swers, ac­cuse them of threat­en­ing law and or­der.”

He said his­to­ry has taught that every au­thor­i­tar­i­an move­ment be­gins with the same ar­gu­ment of “on­ly pro­tect­ing or­der,” that re­stric­tions are “on­ly tem­po­rary” and “law-abid­ing cit­i­zens have noth­ing to fear.”

How­ev­er, Bharath said tem­po­rary be­comes per­ma­nent, re­stric­tions be­come nor­mal,”... and be­fore we know it, free­doms that took gen­er­a­tions to se­cure dis­ap­pear, one reg­u­la­tion at a time.”

“This is why every cit­i­zen should be con­cerned...be­cause rights that are de­nied to your op­po­nents to­day can be de­nied to you and yours to­mor­row. Free­dom can­not sur­vive se­lec­tive out­rage. If you on­ly de­fend lib­er­ty when it ben­e­fits your side, you’re not de­fend­ing lib­er­ty, you’re de­fend­ing pow­er of the tribe,” he said.

“Democ­ra­cy sur­vives on­ly when or­di­nary cit­i­zens refuse to sur­ren­der it; when peo­ple speak out though they’re afraid or dis­cour­aged. It sur­vives when peo­ple stand to­geth­er to let those in ‘pow­er’ know that re­al pow­er be­longs to the peo­ple. It al­ways has and al­ways will. So long as we’re will­ing to de­fend it.”

Bharath list­ed civic ac­tion that drove change in T&T from the 1919 Wa­ter­men’s Strike, which laid the ground­work for work­ers’ rights and po­lit­i­cal re­form and the 1937 But­ler Labour ri­ots against poor wages, ex­ploita­tion, racism and ter­ri­ble work­ing con­di­tions, which the up­com­ing June 19 Labour Day marks.

He cit­ed the 1970 Black Pow­er Move­ment against eco­nom­ic in­equal­i­ty, racial in­jus­tice and for­eign dom­i­na­tion of the econ­o­my and the 1970 out­cry by the op­po­si­tion, civic groups, unions and cit­i­zens which forced with­draw­al of the Pub­lic Or­der Bill, which would have se­vere­ly re­strict­ed civ­il lib­er­ties and protests.

Bharath added, “These strug­gles were won be­cause thou­sands of peo­ple or­gan­ised, spoke out, marched, protest­ed, unionised and de­mand­ed change. These are the ac­tions that shaped the course of our na­tion. To­day, T&T faces such a mo­ment ... Every gen­er­a­tion is test­ed. This is ours.”