By Raffique Shah
December 18, 2011
YOU would think that two years after he suffered the most severe political flogging in local history, Basdeo Panday would have long ridden off into the sunset, hoisted his grandchildren on his lap and sat back in luxury, enjoying an ex-prime minister’s generous pension and perks. But that’s not Panday’s style. He’s back into active politics…or so he says.
Continue reading Degeneration now
By Stephen Kangal
December 13, 2011
Ministerial and accredited diplomacy failed to insulate T&T from the embarrassment occasioned by the successful and complicit application of the extra-territorial tentacles upon which the anti- Cuba 1996 Helms Burton Act (HBA) depends for the effectiveness of its punitive global outreach during the recent triennial Caricom-Cuba Summit. It is Cuba that should have apologized to T&T for feeling the impact of the US big stick diplomacy.
Continue reading Diminishing Our Diplomatic Legacy
By Raffique Shah
December 11, 2011
FIVE weeks ago, in my column titled “Diplomatic Blunders”, I wrote, “…The US has the right to decide what countries it has relations with, so excluding Cuba as a trade or investment partner is not the issue. What is criminal is for the US to use its might to deny other countries, as well as all corporations, their right to have relations with Cuba…”
I was referring to America’s unjust trade embargo against Cuba, but also to the People’s Partnership Government’s seemingly confused foreign policy positions. Trinidad and Tobago had abstained at a UNESCO general meeting at which Palestine was granted full membership, with an overwhelming majority of nations voting in favour of the motion.
Continue reading Blunder after Blunder
By Raffique Shah
December 04, 2011
IT occurred to me recently that I have been writing newspaper columns for 30 years. When I started writing opinion pieces back in 1981, I did not think of it as a career. I was 35 years young, already an ex-soldier who had become notorious during the mutiny of 1970. I was also an ex-MP who had fought fiercely against both Dr Eric Williams and Basdeo Panday, and paid the ultimate political price for having the nerve to cross two crosses that were too heavy to bear.
Continue reading 30 Years and Counting
By Raffique Shah
November 20, 2011
THERE has always been a “disconnect” between what Governments (note plural) say and what they do. The People’s Partnership’s first major policy document since coming to office 18 months ago, the Medium-Term Policy Framework (MTPF), is a comprehensive statement on where Trinidad and Tobago is today, its strengths, weaknesses and potential, and where the Partnership Government wants to take it in three years.
Continue reading Crime Pays
By Raffique Shah
November 13, 2011
AS I watch the “Occupy Wall Street” phenomenon spread its wings of protest across much of the developed world, I cannot help but feel nostalgic.
Those of us who experienced the global rebellion of the 1960s and 1970s must also feel a sense of déjà vu, of having been there, done that. I ask myself: is this a generational upheaval that has erupted to complete unfinished business of that golden era of humanism?
Continue reading Inequality Breeds Unrest
By Raffique Shah
November 06, 2011
TRINIDAD and Tobago’s Ambassador to the United Nations, Rodney Charles, took two rather curious positions over the past week. On October 31, the UNESCO’s General Conference voted on a motion to admit Palestine to that organisation. Mr Charles abstained. Then last Thursday, Mr Charles was one of only three ambassadors who accepted invitations to have lunch with Marine Le Pen, French presidential candidate and leader of the extreme right-wing party, the National Front.
Continue reading Diplomatic Blunders
By Raffique Shah
October 29, 201
LAST Monday, we gathered at the Ellie Mannette Park in St James to say farewell to Dedan Kimathi. His name may not mean anything to people outside of the district he helped christen “The Village”. It encompasses De Freitas, Alfred Richards and nearby streets, with the small park as its focal point.
Although he was a key activist in the Black Power revolution of 1970—he was imprisoned during two states of emergency in 1970 and 1971—he kept a low profile, so even participants in those events may not remember him.
Continue reading Passing parade of the warriors of 1970
By Raffique Shah
October 23, 2011
I WAS not surprised that Tourism Minister Rupert Griffith was all excited over Trinidad and Tobago “winning” a “best destination 2012” award from a Romania-based organisation that seems to be as genuine as a three-dollar bill. Griffith does not strike me as being a particularly bright person, his doctorate notwithstanding.
Continue reading Bogus tourism award
By Raffique Shah
October 15, 2011
NOT surprisingly, Jack Warner is back in the international news—for all the wrong reasons. When he resigned as one of the most powerful men in FIFA earlier this year, Warner probably thought he had buried his past in the murky waters of Lake Zurich.
But that was not to be. FIFA is not the kind of “brotherhood” from which principal players simply walk away. If or when they do, they are expected to maintain “omerta”, the ancient Sicilian code of silence that FIFA has cleverly combined with the Swiss code of banking secrecy.
Continue reading Unlimited Liability