PANDAY’S SELF-SERVICE MANTRA

The Editor: After repeating the allegation ad nauseum since the UNC’s national executive elections of 2001, that the dissatisfaction of the three Ministers dismissed on October 2001 had nothing to do with the corruption in Government but with opposition to his programme of inclusion of nonIndians, Panday has again resorted to this self-serving mantra in two recent radio interviews. Let me state for the records that our disaffection with rampant corruption in the Government and Panday’s condonation of it was but one issue which undermined confidence in the Government and in Panday’s leadership. The writing was on the wall immediately after the UNC was assured of office at the end of 1995. Panday publicly credited four persons, among others, for UNC’s victory in seventeen seats.

A grateful and genuflecting Panday gave these four, among others, full freedom in Government as a reward. The rest is history. The Deyalsingh Inquiry into the Airport Terminal Project concluded that there was collusion in the award of the consultancy contract to Birk, Hillman and irregularity and corrupt practice in other aspects. The court found the Inquiry to be flawed in one technical aspect ie that Ish Galbaransingh and his firm NCL were not given an opportunity to be heard before the Commission. The Court never ruled on the substantive findings. The speed with which Panday moved to have NCL reinstated as the main contractor on the project tells its own story. Some of the revelations of misconduct, conspiracy, secret dealing, irregularity and suspect behaviour before the current Commission of Inquiry which had been brought to Panday’s attention while in office was greeted with stern rebuke. It is difficult to hide behind the tattered fig leaf that since there has been no conviction there was no corruption.

However, there were other issues of equal concern. The enormous control over Government and party exercised by financiers and friends made a mockery of our system of representative government and transformed elected persons into cyphers. The power and influence of the once derided parasitic oligarchy knew no bounds under Panday. This was the price we had to pay for inclusion. The rank and file supporters were being shamelessly hood winked and sold short. The pattern of government expenditure largely benefited a favoured minority. The flagrant subversion of the democracy in the UNC by an arrogant refusal to accept the results of freely contested elections for Executive posts in 2001 could not be tolerated by anyone with an iota of manhood. It was maximum leadership at its most obscene. We had a duty to oppose it.

The issue in the UNC Executive elections of 2001 was never inclusion or non-inclusion of Indians. The slogan “we have come too far to turn black now” was never even conceived let alone used by Team Unity. It was the invention of the spin doctors of the opposing slate who had coined the original slogan — “we have come too far to turn back now”. Incidentally Team Unity offered the most inclusive slate comprising Wade Mark, Joe Theodore, Jules Bernard, Louis Villafana, Curtis Shade, Barbara Burke, Muriel Amoroso, Ted Carasquero and Mogril Polson. The critical question in that election was whether recent crossovers from the PNM who had not served the UNC and who were not even members should aspire to lead it in a deputy capacity or otherwise. This had nothing to do with being Indian or non-Indian.

The right to lead had to be earned and could not merely be a gift of the Maximum Leader. We did not see the UNC as the private property of anyone. I don’t know of any other political party in which a recent member and financier of an opposing party switched allegiance to it and would even dare to contest a senior post in his new organisation. This was the case of Carlos John who incidentally is not black. I want to remind Panday that, after the crisis in the UNC which Kelvin Ramnath precipitated in the first half of 1991, it was both of us alone (Panday and myself) who sat down to decide on an Executive which would not only be inclusive but which would give recognition to those who contributed to the development of the UNC. It was thus that John Humphrey was nominated for Deputy Leader and Wade Mark as Chairman and both elected at the Annual Party Assembly on 31st August 1991. Apparently in those days I was a protagonist of inclusion but lost that status when I dared to oppose the choice of Maximum Leader Panday. The irony of all of this is that I am criticized on national platforms by Panday for being pro-Indian and against the inclusion of non-Indians but, on the other hand, when addressing his Indian constituency in Penal and elsewhere, I am portrayed as anti-Indian and a betrayer of the Indian struggle of 150 years.

Thus in Panday’s distorted logic I am pro-Indian and antiIndian at one and the same time. Sadly I think he seeks to project his own schizophrenia to others. I may also remind him that I, a purported exclusionist of non-Indians, was accepted as a candidate (the youngest) of the Workers and Farmers Party in 1966, of the United Labour Front in 1981 and the National Alliance for Reconstruction in 1986. Surely my allegedly exclusionist conviction would not have been welcome in these parties.

TREVOR SUDAMA
San Fernando