By Gerry Kangalee
Food and Fuel Forum
43 Fifth St., Barataria, Trinidad and Tobago
February 18, 2009
The Food and Fuel Forum of Trinidad and Tobago offers, through the General Union of Guadeloupean Workers, UGTG, its deepest solidarity with the LKP, a grouping of forty seven peoples organisations, the workers and people of Guadeloupe as you pursue your general strike against the extreme exploitation that has been the lot of the masses of people in the French colonies in the Caribbean. We in Trinidad and Tobago also suffer the effects of the capitalist economic crisis and strongly empathise with the people of Guadeloupe.
We support your demands for an immediate increase in wages, pensions, and social benefits. In Guadeloupe where over 100,000 people live below the poverty line in a population of about 450,000 inhabitants. We support your demands for job security and job creation including training for youth, for the protection and improvement of trade union rights and for a decrease in rents.
We condemn the action of the government of France in sending hundreds of armed forces to Guadeloupe in an effort to repress, intimidate and brutalise the people of Guadeloupe. We are particularly concerned because of the massacre of Guadeloupeans by French troops that took place in May 1967 in response to a strike by construction workers.
We call upon the authorities in Guadeloupe to implement the measures demanded by the LKP and to immediately withdraw troops from Guadeloupe.
Ridiculous. You are first and foremost the victims of your culture – not any French action or colonialism or capitalism. A low class culture breeds failure – and that’s what you have. If you stopped scapegoating everything that happens to you on others, maybe you’d get out of the cave or mud. At this pace, you just stir up strife, and do nothing but hurt yourself, and others. It’s time to change your attitude.
I condemn the hoodlums and scum and crooks who you are supporting, who have taken innocent police lives, and who are destroying other peoples property. I condemn you for your solidarity with criminals, and thieves.
If you put yourself in bed with criminals, you are a criminal.
1) Guadeloupe and Martinique are not a colonie.
2) n Guadeloupe where over 100,000 people live below the poverty line in a population of about 450,000
Are you serious ? http://www.afrik.com/article16251.html
The % is 12,5 in 2005. There are 560 000 peole live with 3900 by year.
Unrest in Caribbean has roots in slavery past
POINTE-A-PITRE, Guadeloupe – Protests that have nearly shut down the French Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are not just about demands for lower prices and higher wages: For demonstrators they are no less than a battle against the vestiges of slavery.
Full Article : news.yahoo.com
Guadeloupe is a French colony ,or, as it is formally known an, “overseas region” – and has been since 1814. And like a true imperial power, the French state does not treat its colonial subjects well. The whole world is affected by the crisis of capitalism but as a result of the policies of French imperialism, Guadeloupe is particularly hard hit. The price of petrol, for example, is 50% higher than in France because of special taxation. Police repression is also tough. In 1967, over 180 workers were killed by the French authorities in an effort to stop trade union struggles.
Guadloupe is not a French colony. It has been integrated into the French Republic since 1946. This ‘integration’ ahs not exazctly gone well but it is not accurate to say it is a colony, because by the same token Tobago, through its attachment to Trinidad, would be a colony of Trinidad.
There are many factors at play in Guadeloupe and in the other French overseas territories and the fault lies on both sides. The French haven’t been totally fair in their dealings with Guadeloupe where economic matters are concerned – not that we should expect any different – and the islands are under the grip of a sort of white French oligarchy. That I do recognise.
That said, Guadeloupeans do need to reign in their hyper-consumerism though. And they need to be more dynamic and have a more enterprising spirit. The ‘cap in hand’ method can’t work forever.
They can learn from their CARICOM neighbours.
This is a very ahrd topic to discuss because at the end of the day if you highlight that French people ‘own’ the majority of Guadeloupe the French would simply reply that Guadeloupe IS France so that any talk of them controlling the economy is a moot point.