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Challenges for Afro-Trinbagonians
Posted: Saturday, June 26, 2010

By Vic Gabriel
June 26, 2010


The Prime Minister and the Minister of Finance, respectively the leader of the UNC and of the COP have made errors which are both amateurish and portend challenges for Afro-Trinbagonians ahead.

For Mr. Dookeran, the individual who even more than Jack Warner was responsible for so many young, professional Afro-Trinbagonians supporting the PP, his unprofessional comments about the Treasury being empty means that he has not yet begun to govern but is still electioneering.

For PM Bissessar, her first tactical error was her allowing the High Commissioner for India, and in the presence of MP Warner to get away without being chided publicly with announcing on Indian Arrival Day that "Mother India has arrived ..."

The second, and even more grave error was her immediate meeting with the Prime Minister Jagdeo of Guyana, a country in which according to the 2010 PER Human Rights report from the United Nations, specifically citing grave concerns from the US and from Britain on the systemic marginalisation of minorities in Guyana (a shadow police squad killed more than 200 black youth among other actions) does not portend well for T&T.

Ms. Bissessar, given the vast mandate on confidence by the many racial groups in T&T has a unique opportunity to vault T&T politics above the maw of tribalist citizenry. Were she to do so, and to furthermore govern with the measure for good governance laid down by the first and most iconic Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams of "morality in public affairs", she, too would be another and the second iconic Prime Minister of a country that is nothing short of a Paradise, especially compared with the political conflicts and civil unrests and the like so prevalent elsewhere.

For Afro-Trinbagonians, however, while the issues now and in the past emanate from politically-perceived struggles, for Ms. Bissessar, with the strategic impact people like Sat Maharaj have on the UNC, the question is whether or not what should naturally be political might unfortunately, and even without her wishing it, descend into religious struggles and conflicts.

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