Each TT citizen owns 3m barrels

THE EDITOR: Trinidad and Tobago, as a matter of national pride should move to fill the ICC penalty imposed on us for standing up as a nation in support of the International Criminal Court. Cabinet should find the money at home to keep our army equipped, trained and proud.

We must not act like a woman who, having been divorced by a husband for asserting her independence, like getting a job, for example, advertises for a new husband or goes begging some other man to marry her to cover her costs. She then leaves herself open to abuse verbally and otherwise from the man who rescued her from poverty; Instead such a woman should get some job training and find a job. So too with our republic now forty-one years old. I have just come home from Emceeing the 41st anniversary Gala and Scholarship banquet of the Trinidad and Tobago Association of Texas. Our featured speaker Dr Owen Johnson, formerly of San Fernando pointed out that by virtue of the oil finds in and around TT, each citizen owns about three million barrels!

Well, government should re-negotiate the oil agreements that enrich others and leave us poor. Part of the new revenues should provide training and equipment for the army. We must not be a nation of beggars and supplicants. If we are to be truly free, we must be prepared to pay our way. Get trained personnel from other places to upgrade our military skills, yes, and we can train their people to truly dwell together in unity. We have the master plan on religious tolerance, they have better military equipment and skills. Let’s trade, not beg please. The “divorce” based on our independent mindedness concerning the ICC must never happen again. Aid creates dependence. Let us be truly free.

LINDA EDWARDS
Port-of-Spain