Call for ban on Canadian visa restrictions

The Editor:  For his edification, you should revisit your files to remind Mr Khem Harrinarine of the facts surrounding the imposition of Canadian visa restrictions on Trinidad and Tobago citizens.  In his piece Newsday 5th February entitled “End visa ban on travel to Canada” he described my revelations as “ridiculous”.

If Mr Harrinarine was around at the time, surely he must remember how this visa restrictions matter began. Hulsie Bhaggan had called an impromptu press conference held on a street in her constituency, where she declared that Afro men were attacking Indian Muslim women in St Helena, Cunupia, Piarco and other parts of her constituency. Ms Bhaggan gave no evidence to support her claims that these crimes were being committed by African men.

Soon enough, Indian districts had barricaded themselves and formed vigilante groups.
Some went as far as to put up racist signs.  Things heated up almost to boiling point until one of the vigilantes was shot to death with his own shotgun at an improvised roadblock. They were preventing an Afro Trinidadian from going to his home and an argument ensued, resulting in this death.  The police intervened thereafter and sanity returned to the land. In the wake of this, some Indian Trinidad-ians domiciled in Canada, declared a policy to solve the “problem”; create an Indian  homeland south of the Caroni river called “Indesh”. Following this development, all blacks and non-Indians were to be deported to areas north of the Caroni river.  They also proposed that meanwhile the Canadian government should offer Indo-Trinidadians refugee status.  This was the lynchpin for the wave of refugee applicants. The Cana-dians did not impose a blanket visa restriction on the global community they imposed them on Trinidad and Tobago in 1988; the direct result of our stupidity.

These are the facts Mr Harrinarine. Perhaps you were not in Trinidad at the time or maybe were too young to remember. As for Mr Sahadeo Basdeo the then foreign affairs minister, he was accused of requesting visa restrictions from the Canadians. He never admitted or denied these claims; however up to the time the NAR went out of office he  was lobbying the Canadians to remove the restrictions. He was not successful.  These are the facts Mr Harrinarine. I agree with you that as a prosperous country as Trinidad and Tobago the visa restriction should be lifted.

McDonald James Couva