There is an eerie sim­i­lar­i­ty be­tween what was at­tempt­ed on Tues­day June 30, 2020, and what hap­pened on Ju­ly 27, 1990. On the lat­ter date, the Ja­maat al Mus­limeen stormed the na­tion­al Par­lia­ment just when the de­bate was about to be­gin on the ex­po­si­tion of the cor­rupt thiev­ery of the PNM gov­ern­ment by the then in­cum­bent NAR, un­der the lead­er­ship of Prime Min­is­ter ANR Robin­son.

At the time Mr Sel­wyn Richard­son, the in­cum­bent At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, had com­plet­ed a lengthy foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the Tesoro scan­dal in which if my mem­o­ry serves me cor­rect­ly, those in­volved with­in the PNM were made to repa­tri­ate some $52 mil­lion to our na­tion­al Trea­sury. The de­bate was just about to be­gin in which there was an in­ten­tion to give full ex­po­si­tion to that scan­dal. A se­ries of un­can­ny co­in­ci­dences took place be­fore that de­bate with all but one of the three sit­ting PNM MPs leav­ing the Cham­ber min­utes be­fore the Par­lia­ment was “in­vad­ed.”

On the present oc­ca­sion, the press has re­port­ed that Mr Fuad Abu Bakr, who is af­fil­i­at­ed to the same Mus­lim Ja­maat, and 72 oth­er na­tion­als were ar­rest­ed yes­ter­day. The Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice de­scribed the dis­tur­bance as a co-op­er­a­tive at­tempt at civ­il un­rest by a ca­bal of in­di­vid­u­als who wished to stage vi­o­lent protests to desta­bilise the coun­try.

Thank good­ness that un­like the pre­vi­ous­ly at­tempt­ed coup of 1990, the po­lice chose to act on their in­tel­li­gence, there­by quick­ly bring­ing the sit­u­a­tion un­der con­trol. Had they ig­nored that in­tel­li­gence as had hap­pened in 1990, who knows what may have hap­pened?

The present ad­min­is­tra­tion has al­leged­ly en­gaged in sev­er­al acts that raise sus­pi­cion of po­lit­i­cal cor­rup­tion. These in­clude the fast-fer­ry deals, the vis­it of the vice-pres­i­dent of Venezuela, the al­leged un­der­hand sale of 150,000 gal­lons of re­fined fu­el to Venezuela, the pur­chase of two new Coast­guard ves­sels with­out the safe­guard of the ac­cept­ed ten­der­ing pro­ce­dure, the in­ter­minable de­lay in pro­claim­ing Pro­cure­ment Leg­is­la­tion passed by the pre­vi­ous gov­ern­ment since 2015, the un­re­solved AV Oil scan­dal, the shut­ting down of Petrotrin, along with sev­er­al oth­ers that de­bil­i­tat­ed this coun­try’s econ­o­my and re­quired ur­gent fur­ther foren­sic in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

With a na­tion­al elec­tion loom­ing, and with the PNM’s chances look­ing gloomy not on­ly be­cause of these al­leged scan­dals but be­cause of abysmal­ly poor gov­er­nance that has seen our econ­o­my un­der­go an un­prece­dent­ed five con­sec­u­tive years of eco­nom­ic de­cline, any cri­sis could be seen to pro­vide an op­por­tu­ni­ty for those who may wish to use it for po­lit­i­cal ad­van­tage.

Those seg­ments of our so­ci­ety in which young peo­ple re­peat­ed­ly en­gage in vi­o­lent ac­tions against each oth­er and re­sult in po­lice in­ter­ven­tion must ac­knowl­edge that the po­lice is the arm of gov­ern­ment whose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty it is to en­force the law. These peo­ple seem to come from “hot-spot” com­mu­ni­ties that re­peat­ed­ly fea­ture in the news. Why is this hap­pen­ing over and over?

These young peo­ple have latched on to the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment with­out first hav­ing even the most rudi­men­ta­ry knowl­edge of what that move­ment stands for. If these peo­ple want change in their life cir­cum­stances why do they not ex­am­ine the way politi­cians use them as fod­der, make emp­ty promis­es, and then aban­don them?

Have they asked them­selves what they can do as in­di­vid­u­als to im­prove them­selves? Do they come from sta­ble fam­i­lies? How many of them grew up with a fa­ther? How many of them at­tend­ed school? What is their lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion?

In­deed, our politi­cians need to de­vise poli­cies that would ad­dress these de­fi­cien­cies if in­deed they do ex­ist, rather than hand­ing out po­lit­i­cal largess.

Steve Smith,

FR­CP (Ed)