Category Archives: NJAC

Rowley: I’m a PNM sailor

Diego Martin West candidate Dr Keith Rowley
Diego Martin West candidate Dr Keith Rowley
By Andre Bagoo
Friday, May 7 2010

PNM DIEGO Martin West candidate Dr Keith Rowley last night attempted to reconcile his stance on corruption in the PNM with his continued support of his party in the 2010 general election campaign by arguing that “when a ship goes out to battle that is no time to throw the captain overboard”.
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Election 2010: An Opportunity for Change

Election 2010

By Heru
May 03, 2010
www.trinidadandtobagonews.com/blog

Here is my blunt take on this upcoming election. Neither the UNC and their United Force of Change nor the PNM are truly convincing to me but that cannot stop me from taking steps now that would be part of a process to get improved governance. Doing nothing is not an option as it can encourage the wrongs that exist to continue and for non-doers to be also complicit in them. There is no way that we will be absolutely absolved from complicity in the wrongs of any government. We have to continually work at ebbing away our complicity by working towards improved governance which starts with people being honest and objective about what they want and how they go about getting it.
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Tragedy of election errors

By Raffique Shah
May 02, 2010

National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) leader Makandal DaagaHAROLD Wilson, Prime Minister of Britain (1964-76), is credited with the adage, ‘A week is a long time in politics.’ In Trinidad and Tobago, it seems that a day in elections campaigning can trigger changes that would eternally haunt one contestant or other. I had planned to write about platform promises by both major parties, whether or not they are empty rhetoric or offer practical solutions to the myriad problems that face the citizenry. In other words, they can talk and promise, but can they deliver?
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Kamla must think carefully on Volney

Justice Herbert VolneyJudges in the house?
We have no problem with former judges deciding to join political parties, and to run as candidates for these parties. The difference is that a former judge is a citizen like the rest of us. We cannot yet refer to Judge Volney as a “former judge” in this debate. He was still on the Bench when he made his decision, and he clearly must have been in some sort of consultation with the UNC even as he enjoyed the status of a High Court Judge.
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‘Dashiki’ Silence Disappointing

National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) leader Makandal Daaga
NJAC leader Makandal Daaga
As an Indo-Trinidadian, I was amazed to hear Mr. Manning speaking ill of the African dashiki on his platform almost a week ago (“Kamla surrounded by strong, dangerous men, says Manning” – Express, April 23). To hear an esteemed Afro-Trinidadian belittling a garment that is culturally identified with my African brothers and sisters is parallel to Mr. Panday admonishing me for consuming doubles. It is a new depth when we as a people are so bent on denigrating other races and ethnicities that we mistakenly miss the boat and begin to attack our very own as Mr. Manning, without thinking has done.
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A People’s Partnership

LEFT: David Abdullah of the Movement for Social Justice, Congress of the People (COP) political leader Winston Dookeran, Tobago Organisation of the People (TOP) leader Ashworth Jack, United National Congress (UNC) leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar, National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) political leader Makandal Daaga, and chairman of the Movement for Social Justice Errol McLeod.
Opposition Parties Sign Unity Pact at Fyzabad Meeting
By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
April 27, 2010

All the symbols were there: they met at Fyzabad near the spot on which Charlie King was killed in the name of the people and they raised their hands in unity as they proclaimed a new partnership. Makandal Dagga, Errol McLeod and Ashworth Jack were necessarily somber. Winston Dookeran sought to infuse a philosophical dimension into the proceedings even though he attributed President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s words from his Inaugural Address (“The only thing you have to fear is fear itself”) to Martin Luther King even as Kamla Persad Bissessar aimed to invest a solemnity to the occasion by delivering her speech in tightly clinched phrases. It was almost as though being herself and using her normally mellifluous cadences would have betrayed a peasant sensibility that they may have thought was inappropriate for the occasion.
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Entry ban fallout

Minister of National Security Martin Joseph
Minister of National Security Martin Joseph
Newsday Editorial
April 27, 2010 – newsday.co.tt

Unless and until the Minister of National Security can convince us differently the following has to be said.

Bernard Campbell was not allowed to enter the country because the PNM was afraid that he would successfully help the UNC coalition win the election on May 24.
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Dr. Browne, you will grow old too

Minister of Social Development Dr. Amery Browne
Minister of Social Development Dr. Amery Browne
Monday, April 26 2010

THE EDITOR: The recent rumblings and overt tumblings in the PNM serve as just testimony to an increasingly alienated Prime Minister, largely divorced from the lives and challenges of the populace. To hear him on the campaign trail speaking of Makandal Daaga as a virtual has-been, whose prominence occurred 40 years ago, comes as no surprise to many regarding his attitude toward nation-builders and freedom-fighters that played a vital role in accentuating liberty in our land.
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History lessons for Manning

By Raffique Shah
April 25, 2010

National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) leader Makandal Daaga‘DID you hear the Prime Minister lashing out at you on the PNM platform last night?’ It was the kind of telephone calls and greetings I received repeatedly over the past week. I informed my ‘informants’ that I did hear Mr Manning mention my name, among others, as he attempted to give PNM supporters ‘History lessons’. As a columnist who writes on political issues, I need to stay tuned to the ranting on the hustings if I am to write informed comments.
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