NUFF no different to criminals

THE EDITOR: The Parliamentary chamber has now been desecrated and relegated to the status of being a meeting room where the Opposition are now trying to read eulogies to evoke emotions and settle private family matters with the view of causing distractions. On Tuesday May 25, Jennifer Jones-Kernahan stood up in that hallowed chamber trying to distort history and misled this nation while trying to defend her “guerilla sister” Beverly Jones who was killed by the security forces during the turbulent days of the 1970s.

A brief synopsis of these affairs reveals that the National Union of Freedom Fighters (NUFF), a radical splinter group was born out of the Black Power movement of which the sister of the goodly senator was an active fighting member. She was killed by the security forces along with other violent members over a period of years from 1970 up to about 1972 or thereabouts. That group was the first to stage a bank robbery, namely the Bank of Commerce on Tragarete Road, now Republic Bank, to fund their guerilla activities which actively engaged the security forces in running battles which spread to the hills and forests in rural areas. Their members also embarked on robberies and other nefarious acts all in the name of the so-called revolution. They also tried to take over the Toco Police Station to get guns for their organisation, threw molotov cocktails into the homes of police officers and other perceived enemies, blew up the Textel communication station in Matura and countless other atrocities all to the detriment of this country and its citizens who they claimed to be standing up for. They abandoned the ballot for the bullet, they rejected democracy for anarchy.

These events immediately bring to my mind this erroneous and misleading and nauseating calypso sung by Gypsy some years ago namely “Somebody stealing the soul of the nation” where he gloried these early bad boys and rude girls and tried to place them in the status of heroes and martyrs insinuating that they gave their lives for me and you. I say utter hogwash Gypsy, me thinks that you are trying to steal the head of the youths of the nation instead, get thee hence with your depraved ideology, that calypso should be banned. Is this what you want for “Mother Trinbago” you man of backward thinking? These people were nothing different to our modern day common criminals who roam this land causing death and destruction to all. No wonder why you and Jones-Kernahan can only find yourselves in the collective company of a party of people who are bent on disrupting, dividing and misleading the citizens and destroying this country until they get things their way; you all are rapidly losing credibility, morality, integrity and character and will be unmasked for what you are soon enough.

Jones-Kernahan would do well enough to use the death of her sister not as a political ploy or distraction in parliament but instead as a teaching platform to the youths not to enter the business of crime. In parting I now urge you to tell the nation the truth which is, that the NUFF and its criminal organisation was only a cover operating under the popular support of the Black Power uprising and had absolutely nothing to do with any martyrdom, or liberation or freedom fighting for me or anyone. These irrelevant and private issues must not take precedence over matters of national interests; time to move on and take TT forward. I remain a humble servant of Trinbago, nuff said.

LESLIE CRAIGWELL
Carenage