Tag Archives: Race politics

Police State Inna 4D!!!!!

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Daphnee Bartlett, head of the South businessmen association who thinks a Police State is the best option to dealing with crime spikes. Intelligent folk everywhere should be up in arms!Women should be applying to change their gender!

Daphnee Bartlett, head of the South businessmen association who thinks a Police State is the best option to dealing with crime spikes. Intelligent folk everywhere should be up in arms!
Women should be applying to change their gender!

There are daft people sitting in positions of power in this country and we’d better be afraid…truly afraid.

Imagine the San Fernando Businessmen ASSociation, comprised no doubt of businessmen and women from South Trinidad is eagerly proclaiming Better a POLICE State than a CRIMINAL State.

I immediately harked back to the SoE of 2011 when on the night Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her Small Goal Team made the announcement many members of the middle, upper and business classes heaved huge sighs of relief because finally some government was brave enough to lock up all them black people and them….oh yeah…you better recognise that that is what all the relief about the SoE was…..that’s the same thing that fuelled the anti-Sea Lots rant by Darryll Heeralal and Renuka Singh the other day too….all these damn black people…let’s kill them and plant cabbage on them! YEAH!!!!!

Now, we have a group of businesspeople, or the body that represents them coming out to endorse a Police State because the PPG’s Defence Amendment Bill, is under siege both inside and outside the Parliament….and for good cause.

Apparently Daphne Bartlett’s knickers are in a knot about why we don’t want soldiers to have powers of arrest….and like the political leader of this country, Daphne Bartlett has just dealt a severe blow to all intelligent women in the world every where who happen to be attractive, for her colossal intellectual laziness.

I say this because I want to believe Ms Bartlett doesn’t know what a police state is and in her ignorance does not know what she is encouraging or endorsing.

The version of the Defence Amendment Bill that I accessed online says the following:

The Bill seeks to amend section 5 of the Defence Act,
Chap. 14:01 to confer on any member of the Defence Force who is
engaged in assisting any member of the Police Service in the
maintenance of law and order, with the same powers, authorities,
privileges and immunities as are given by law to members of the
Police Service.

In plain wording…the Bill wants to give the exact powers of the Police to a Soldier once he is on patrol.

One of the clever little things that this pdf of the legislation doesn’t quite outline is that Soldiers by law do not fall under the Commissioner of Police, rather authority for soldiers fall under three people: the Chief of Defence Staff, Minister of National Security and ultimately the President, who is Commander in Chief.

Soldiers searching a civilian during the 2011 SoE.

Soldiers searching a civilian during the 2011 SoE.

So the soldier will have all of the powers of a police officer: the ability to detain you, search you, arrest you, question/interrogate you, charge you and lock you up. But he doesn’t fall under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Police.

Says it right here:

When any member of the Defence Force
having been charged under subsection (2) with
Enactment Short title Section 5 of
Chap. 14:01 amended the duty of assisting any member of the
Police Service in the maintenance of law and
order and is engaged in so doing, he shall have
the same powers, authorities, privileges and
immunities as are given by law to members
of the Police Service.”.

If he cocks up on the job he is only likely to face a court marshall. If you think Police doh face prison here…wait till Soldier Police arrive!

Now let me explain how a soldier getting these privileges amounts to a Police State. Last night in Parliament Roodal Moonilal was again less than honest with the nation when he said even security officers are precepted. What he failed to explain is that precepted security officers….those allowed to carry weapons and make arrests are actually called Estate Constables and operate by a slightly different set of rules to regular security guards.

This Government, in trying to shove this bill down our throats, has gone into all kinds of arguments about how the army here has no purpose because we have no war for soldiers to fight except the war on drugs. Now, lemme ask you this…when this Government starts its “WAR on DRUGS” and deploys its soldiers to attack the citizenry….which citizens you think will be attacked? The people who bringing in the shipments of drugs….or the people who are used to control the drug blocks?

In all sane and proper countries the purpose of the army is to defend the citizens of a country, not attack them. If Kamla and Jack were serious about fighting crime and waging a war on drugs the country would have three OPV Vessels with a joint patrol of Soldiers and Coast Guard members on board these vessels protecting our borders from traffickers or drugs and guns….but the point of precepting soldiers and making Soldier Police here isn’t to fight crime or to wage a war on drugs….

If you believe that, then you believe the SoE was about fighting crime, protecting the PM from several assassination attempts and preventing Beetham from bunkering fuel.

This precepting of soldiers and making soldiers into police is about something deeper and far sinister. It is about controlling the State.

From as early as June 2010 this government has faced Opposition. The first active opposition came from the THA. And to date the people of Tobago are down on record as having been the most successful at resisting this government thanks to solid legislation in the THA Act and a Chief Secretary who knows his Constitution and isn’t afraid to assert himself. But this Defence Bill will affect Tobago too…and I am yet to hear its position.

Persad-Bissessar announcing the SoE...pretty dangerous!

Persad-Bissessar announcing the SoE…pretty dangerous!

For several months the PP administration enjoyed a delicious honeymoon with both the citizens and the media. People couldn’t get enough of Kamla dashing about in hard hat and OSHA gear by day as she swooped in on  a helicopter to aid the flood afflicted, and by night would transform into an elegant Prime Minister. Haven’t we been accused often enough of “jealousing the PM because she pretty”?

But then came the Reshmi Ramnarine incident….the hiring of telephone operator to run the country’s highest intelligence -gathering agency. What accompanied it too was the thorough and deliberate dismantling of all the country’s security apparati: Blimp, OPVs, Surveillance Equipment, SAUTT.

Then the government brought in a CoP they could manipulate and under whom they could promote and appoint their own select police officers into positions of authority. We have on record a letter from a mid-level police officer who appears to be giving advice to the Prime Minister on who to hire and fire in both the SIA and the Police Service. The basis given for firing people is political. According to the letter, Persad advises the PM to fire people because they seem loyal to the PNM. And we were angry at the Jamaica Observer for talking about ethnic cleansing in our Public Service why?
What that letter outlined was that this is a government bent on political retribution and there is no space in the country for anyone who is PNM or resembles a PNM….and in Trinidad to resemble a PNM you need only have Afro-centric features….if that isn’t both partisan and racist, I don’t know what is….but that is the government we have…a government that is only for it’s people: the UNC/COP Base!

It doesn’t surprise me at all that both the PM and this Police Officer share a last name.

But I digress…I need to explain how precepted soldiers and Police State are linked.

Everywhere you turned during the SoE were images like this one....and oh how the middle and upper classes felt safe!

Everywhere you turned during the SoE were images like this one….and oh how the middle and upper classes felt safe!

So the Reshmi incident happens followed fast and furious by many scandals and then comes the SoE. From August 2011, I said the SoE was only the beginning of the Constitutional ills of this government. The SoE got citizens used to the idea of detaining and locking up people who “look” like criminals. In Trinidad a criminal “looks” like a black person, usually from depressed poor areas. Trust me, the stereotypes are there. In the very first days of the SoE I had several women of Indo descent telling me about how safe they were feeling….not a crime had been solved…but the mere fact that the government had taken upon itself to lock up people who “looked” like criminals made these women happier. And that’s when I realised that Hulsie Bhaggan’s myth of the African rapist who lusts only after Indian women was still alive and well. You go girl!

During that SoE we got accustomed to images of black men in the back of trucks; we got accustomed to images of the AG and Minister of National Security on our tv sets regularly. The AG went after a 14-year-old girl who used YouTube to verbally attack and curse the PM for the SoE….and on Facebook you had feminists lamenting how the PM and Indian women have no voice in Trinidad and couldnt speak out on issues.. they didn’t seem particularly perturbed that an impressionable 14-year-old, who did shit, now had the might of the State in the form of the AG trained on her. You see, these women were all glad that at long last something was being done about the crime….and that something was the random and baseless locking up of people who look like criminals….black people.

Granny Killa...the reason for the SoE????

Granny Killa…the reason for the SoE????

The next threat during that SoE was intimidating people on FaceBook and other forms of Social media. Social media takes power out of a government’s hands and puts it in the hands of its citizens. Imagine tens of thousands of Trinis able to say what they like about the PM and AG and Jack can’t stop them? Madness!

So they began to attack people on Social Media and trained their paid bloggers to attack folks who spoke out against the government.

What became apparent and obvious was fear…people became concerned about what they were posting and saying to each other online. Because folks began to lose jobs or get threats.

Now jump forward to Warner becoming National Security Minister. UNC people were joyful, they knew their government wasn’t performing and because Warner talks a good talk, without having little to show for any of it, they believed Jack would solve the crime problem.

Activist Wayne Kublalsingh at a protest sign in Mon Desir, the site of the controversial multi-billion dollar highway.

Activist Wayne Kublalsingh at a protest sign in Mon Desir, the site of the controversial multi-billion dollar highway.

Within three days of becoming Minister of National Security what did Warner do? He used the might of the army to attack not criminals….protesters. Try and see the trend here folks….at every turn the people being attacked as criminals by this government are the people who are either seen to be PNM or to be opposing the government. anything remotely resembling Opposition has to be squashed.

Warner has since issued threats to a female journalist, the Opposition Leader and a private citizen, Donald Bell. The journalist was targeted in a live, state-sponsored broadcast featuring the Minister of National Security and several other government ministers all hell bent on attacking a journalist. The other two people he attacked under the privilege of Parliament.

On all three occasions what is implied is that Warner has tremendous state apparati at his disposal. He can spy on people and intercept information and use it to intimidate people.

To date, Warner, as National Security Minister hasn’t used any of the surveillance equipment at hand to uncover details about any criminals or to crack any cases….but we know that he knows who having meetings in their homes and who attending…right?

jack-warner-press-conferenceThe same man who doesn’t know a thing about the Flying Squad, can use intelligence to spy on private citizens.

So now we have a situation where a National Security Minister drunk on power and a Prime Minister drunk on….sighh….have taken it upon themselves to precept soldiers and give them powers of arrest and detention.

In a country where a State of Emergency can be called without due process or a valid reason and 8000 people, of whom 80% were of African descent, can be detained without evidence, do we want Soldier Police?

In a country where a Minister of National Security can use state surveillance equipment to spy on and intimidate citizens do we want Soldier Police?

In a country where a secret police Unit can be set up under the same Minister of National Security, complete with 75 officers and a private detention prison in Arouca that no one in the country knows about, do we want Soldier Police?

In a Police State the government controls the social, economic and political life of the citizens.

In a Police State the government imposes these controls on you claiming it is for you own security that your rights are being taken away.

In a Police State after you have given away these rights, even more rights are then taken away….at each point the state claims it is for your own good, for teh safety and security of the NAYYYYSHUN!

The first people targeted are those who oppose the Government publicly…thereafter anything goes as the government becomes more and more paranoid about the perceived enemies of the state.

Think of Nazi Germany, South Africa under apartheid; Haiti under Duvalier…..think Ton Ton Macoute, SS Officers. Think people being quietly arrested and detained and you don’t know which prison cell they are being held in and eventually their beaten or dead body shows up…their one crime being they didn’t agree with the government’s position on an issue.

A five-year-old can tell you that there are a number of ways this government could be tackling crime. Start with the money launderers and see where the trail ends. Clean up the police service so that corrupt officers are no longer protecting drug lords and their turf. Restrict the flow of arms and ammunition across our borders; improve detection skills in the police force and at forensic technology at crime labs.

But putting 1000 soldiers with the powers of arrest under the Ministry of National Security to wage a war against citizens isn’t the way. This isn’t about Warner alone….CDS Kenrick Maharaj doesn’t inspire me with confidence either, nor does Stephen Williams. And I won’t even bother to discuss PM Kamla. This is about an entire government  and its cronies that are drunk on power and will do everything to hold onto it, including removing the rights of its citizens. Section 34 ring a bell?

There is a reason the Sunset Clause lasts two years….by that time a new election is called. Two years to lock down and terrorise a country with an unofficial SoE. Two years to have the government’s specially picked Soldier Police run riot in this town.

If in 3 months the SoE managed to lock up 8000 people, imagine what this government will do in 24….

And this is the asinine decision that Daphne Bartlett and Associates are supporting?

Full Dotish Inna 4D!!!!!!!

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3 Degrees of Full Dotish!

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Kevan Gibbs: The man behind Great Fete weekend and now the TOP THA Elections.

Kevan Gibbs: The man behind Great Fete weekend and now the TOP THA Elections.

It is the middle of Silly Season in Tobago, in a THA elections that has been hijacked by the Central Government and turned into a full blown circus. TOP and the UNC are using the creative genius of the mastermind behind the Tobago Great Fete to run its THA campaign and  this genius has helped to turn the THA Election into a proper monster. Coupled with Silly Season are three other very serious issues happening here in Trinidad that I’m sure the Government is hoping no one pays attention to.

Full Dotish 1 Race Baiting to the nth Degree: If you’ve never experienced Great Fete Weekend in Tobago count yourself fortunate. I had the misfortune once. I was 18 and in Tobago visiting relatives when my sister and I decided to head down to Store Bay to lime and swim. We went about midday and stayed until later afternoon and got caught in the start of a beach party that was part of the Great Fete weekend festivities. It was at 18, on a beach in Store Bay, that I saw how easily women can be molested and sexually assaulted for being dressed in swimsuits and present at a beach fete. The attitude of the men around was that women were at the fete for sex or at least foreplay. We left the beach before sunset and I have thereafter carefully avoided Great Fete weekend. It’s frowned upon by many Tobagonians. They see it as just another event where rude Trinidadians invade their quiet island for more rum and revelry. But Sandbox Promotions has a good thing going at Crown Point and it generates revenue. I guess it must be on that basis that Sandbox has been given leeway to shape the TOP campaign. A campaign that now resembles a ghetto fete gone wrong. The Calcutta Ship ad, that is helping to promote the same racism that the TOP and UNC claim to be against has finally been pulled…and I feel that ad has backfired on them. Because while Sandbox might know how to throw a fete in Tobago, I’m yet to be convinced that Sandbox knows how to throw an election campaign and I will explain why.

In an island as devoutly Protestant as Tobago, and suspicious of any practice that is Unorthodox, why on earth would you arrange for the PM who is both Hindu and Spiritual Baptist and rude to read at a pulpit. While that may be playing to a TOP audience, it’s not likely to go off as well with many other residents of the island.
Using children to send a rude message to the THA Chief secretary is another No-No. Tobagonians still admire things like manners, class and respectability. Sandbox entertainment has introduced a level of crassness and vulgarity to an election campaign that is normally never this heated or hectic. TOP’s response to Hilton Sandy’s Calcutta Ship has only served to take the race talk up several notches and anger Tobagonians and Trinis alike. Now to add fuel to the fire Skippy Barrington Thomas has asked the Equal Opportunities Commission to launch a probe into Sandy’s comments. A move that is likely to go nowhere but will continue to stir up hate and disgust. It’s almost as if UNC and TOP revelling in the morass now. Sandy has since issued two apologies for his race-imbued comments, yet that seems to matter little in the scheme of things….this from a party that is home to the likes of Kamla Persad-Bissessar, Devant Maharaj, Nizam Mohammed and Jack Warner.

To see Tobago’s politics fall into the this type of behaviour that is typical of Trinidad politics is saddening. To see the UNC/TOP that constantly describes itself as the NEW POLITICS/ALL INCLUSIVE party with no evidence to support such claims, continue to promote the race-baiting is beyond disgusting. But congratulations to SandBox entertainment members who have managed to extend the ethos of Great Fete into wider Tobago.

Nat Sec Minister.....

Nat Sec Minister…..

Full Dotish 2 Operation Police State: I wont go into lengthy details here but crime gone clear. And I am not just referring to murders, but to what is fuelling the murders – the gun and drug trade – trades that are closely linked to all kinds of white collar corruption here like fraud and money laundering. Trinidad rotten from head to tail, but the only Crime Initiatives ever implemented here are ones to deal with the poor working underclass in selected areas that are primarily black or feature people that resemble John Sandy. In 2010 when the PP decided to cancel the OPVs their comments were that the Drug and Crime wars weren’t at sea but on land. And so they were moving the fight to the land. This same government implemented policies that made our borders porous. This same government created loopholes and gaps in our borders to allow for drugs and guns to enter Trinidad freely. These porous borders led to the crisis that caused 11 murders in 2 days and for Kamla in haste and fear to call a SoE and then use the cover of a SoE to target Afro-descended people living in poor urban and rural areas with the blessings of most of the wealthy and middle class of Trinidad.
Now we have Jack Warner promising to give 1000 soldiers precepted powers and the setting up of not 1 but 5 military bases around the island. After this government’s abuse of power during the SoE, after Warner abused his power as Minister of Nat Sec and turned Police and Military on a group of Highway protesters; after the fiasco that is Section 34, are we really to trust this government with this National security policy? Can Warner be trusted? Soldiers with arrest powers? Really? And no one wants to see that we are heading towards a state where too much power is falling into the hands of armed forces?

And of course you have members of the business community, such as Daphne Bartlett issuing the following statements:”president of the San Fernando Business Association Daphne Bartlett said the move to grant powers of arrests to soldiers was long overdue, and the army bases were being set up at key points where there could be careful monitoring of the coasts. “We support the locations that Mr Warner chose, because he acknowledged recently how porous our borders are,”. Clearly she forgot who made the borders porous and that the battles moved from the land to the sea.

Full Dotish 3 Abusive Vegendas: Women, Womanhood and the female psyche taking real abuse under this government. Back in 2010 the local feminist movement came out to speak about how chauvinist the PNM government was. That it had a very authoritative, oppressive and masculine approach to government. All of it true. To date, not a member of that same clique of women has come out to discuss the nature of the governance we are receiving under the PP. I have commented on the silence often. In a conversation last year with Gabrielle Hosein – a gender activist, lecturer in Gender studies at UWI, and in 2010 an open supporter of Kamla Persad-Bissessar as Prime Minister – I asked Ms Hosein why she had not written out against the atrocities to women under this regime and Ms Hosein explained that her workload coupled with her new-found status as a mother made it difficult for her to find the time to address these issues……..are you hearing the crickets that playing right now?

Under Kamla’s tenure – a woman who garbs herself in vagenda clothes all the time “As a mother and a grandmother”, “we are a caring government, a compassionate government” etc – we have witnessed the rampant nepotism and corruption: excusing the abuse of state funds to pay her sister; gender-shaming the country into believing that she was being given a hard time during her campaign because she is a woman; the abuse of Sita Gajardharsingh-Nanga by Sat Maharaj with not a word said against it; the bullying and abuse of Cheryl Miller; the abuse and assault of women under the SoE by police and soldiers; and most recently San Fernando Mayor Navi Murad-Ali is reported to have physically abused his girlfriend in a public spat. Murad-Ali denies physical abuse, but admits to verbal abuse in a public sphere.

And like good Victorian-Era women, the feminists remain mute.

The Ethnic Agenda

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In case you missed it, Ambassador Neil Parsan’s wife is black, which apparently is an actual ethnicity, not just a colour; and his wife’s colour apparently gives the goodly ambassador carte blanche to make up information about Trinidad and Tobago and the wider Caribbean. Oh, wait you missed it? You missed the speech wherein the diplomat that is supposed to be representing an entire multicultural nation gave a speech that implied he is really only there to serve the interests of a particular interest group: the People’s Partnership? Some of the key points in Parsan’s speech was to point out that the “Indian Diaspora is a formidable force in Trinidad and Tobago, the largest numerical representation in the Caribbean.” And let’s not forget as well that Indians are ” the most well-to-do and culturally strong and progressive ethnic group in the uniquely plural society of Trinidad and Tobago.”

 

I can’t tell you where to find Ambassador Parsan’s speech anymore because it has since been removed from the embassy’s website. What I can tell you is that Neil Parsan is engaging in a not very subtle game of Whose Ethnicity Is More Superior? And that is a game that the entire country will lose. Why? Because it is pitting groups against each other, and making the atmosphere of Trinidad and Tobago more toxic. A speech such as this says plainly that groups here don’t yet view themselves as Trinbagonians but as ethnicities all holding their corner and struggling for a larger piece of the pie. That an Ambassador, a diplomat, representing an entire nation, would be caught delivering such a speech is beyond embarrassing and Parsan should hand in his instruments of appointment and just leave Washington DC because his conduct as an Ambassador in that speech is poor. He is not representing a country.

 

But  Ambassador Parsan is but one in a string of ethnicity-related gaffes we have had coming from the People’s Partnership of late. Since the massive Section 34 March, we have had Minister of National Security, Jack Warner, on several platforms spreading a message of ethnic strife. The Section 34 march was negligible according to Warner because he saw only Afro-descended people in it. As if to imply that Afro- descended people aren’t Trinbagonian enough to be taken seriously. As if to imply that it wasn’t a march of citizens. As if to imply Section 34 is a race or ethnicity issue and not a national issue. Mere weeks after the march, on i95.5 with John Wayne Benoit, MP for Mayaro, Winston Peters in response to a question repeated that he is only representing the people who voted for him.

 

And if that wasn’t insulting enough, Warner then, sulking and petulant, announced that he wasn’t attending the opening of the Nagar because Keith Rowley would be there. Disingenuous as ever, Warner claimed he didn’t want to politicize the issue. Then Sat Maharäj, pundit Harry Maharaj and Devant Maharäj jumped in to support Warner’s position. Mind you, this is Divali and the Divali Nagar site. A holiday celebrated by the national community on lands donated by the state. What Warner was ostensibly saying to Rowley is we don’t want you or your kind here. Please keep in kind that Warner is not the UNCs Minister of National Security, he is the nation’s, obligated to serve the nation, and at a public forum this is how he speaks to the Leader of the Opposition, a man that represents the interests of another part of our society.

 

Of course, yes, you can argue that Warner was there in his capacity as Chairman of the UNC. And in that case, what are Warner’s words and actions saying about the party’s agenda and policies? Is the UNC, the party that is currently leading this coalition government, actively using strategies of ethnic division and polarizing politics as part of its strategy to stay in government? The COP agreed to this? Because I can’t see what other way there is to define what Warner and his supporters are attempting to do if not polarize the nation yet again.

 

And to add frosting and cherry on top this ethnic agenda cake is our Prime Minister. A lady who is mum on most matters, but manages to break her silence at the closing ceremony of the Divali Nagar and used the opportunity to attack the Leader of the Opposition. And on trivial issues no less. What the Prime Minister fails to remember with the whole goar lagay incident, when she decided to bow before the President of India is simply this: the PM was there in her capacity as the head of government, greeting another head of government; two heads of state do not bow to each other. Simple protocol. But it seems the PMs advisers are not strong on protocol, just on beefing up her strategies for her ethnic agenda.

 

If sounding like a petulant child about the international bowing incident wasn’t insult enough, the PM then lashed out at the Opposition Leader’s decision to wear a kurtah to ceremonies at the Nagar. Apparently the PM has a monopoly on wearing ethnic garb in this country and we didnt get the memo.

 

The Partnership sounding scared. They sound jittery. Why else would they need to begin to deploy race politics so hard if not to rally their voter base around them. and that’s an old Bas trick, eh. When under attack rally the troops. So in one breath the PM will talk about representing the nayshun….and in another, she scolding people to get in their section.

 

But I want to take a minute and examine this voter base that the PP appealing to. Persad-Bissessar can only be appealing to a group for whom policies based on tribalism and ethnic division will work on. So then, is the leader of the PP saying that her voter base wants ethnic division? Is the leader of the PP also saying that she is quite willing to use divisive tactics once it keeps her popular. Remind me what was the new politics we voted for in 2010 again?

We won’t be getting any of that new politics anytime soon simply because Kamla and the PP must now rally the troops together and bunker down until 2015. Any loss of her voter base, or the Indian vote to the PNM will be a bad sign. Especially since she knows that she depended heavily on the PNM vote that the COP managed to capture. That’s out the window now since PNM supporters see COP for what it truly is….a Trojan Horse of a party.

Kamla also knows that there is no way she can win the seat of government with just the Hindu government. So the struggle is on. Let’s hope others keep their head on and see this Ethnic agenda policy for what it truly is….divide and rule so that the UNC can live another day….but still, you have to ask yourself what it says about the party’s voter base that race politics appeals to them.

De Vice Cyah Done!