Unpatriotic signals of ‘neemakharamism’ from Tobago

THE EDITOR: In the face of enormous budgetary and other allocations afforded aplenty to fuel the feeding frenzy for the 40 percent of Trinbagonians resident in the sister isle of Tobago I must express my outrage at the unpatriotic, divisive and self-serving signals of neemakharamism coming from those elected to preside over the unitary statehood of Mother TT. They must disabuse their minds from believing that TT is a twin-island republic. It is a 23-island archipelagic state since 1988 by statute.

A Caroni cane-cutter should not have to remind THA Secretary Orville London and former President Arthur NR Robinson that an acrimonious dispute relating to the fixing of a maritime boundary between TT and Barbados has now progressed to a very delicate stage before international litigation. TT’s case rests heavily on the applicability of the use of its archipelagic straight baseline drawn from Point Galeota to Little Tobago to derive and draw this bilateral boundary.

Accordingly that statement attributed to former President/PM Robinson (Newsday October 14, p12) at the Tobago Meeting of the President’s National Self-Discovery Committee reincarnating Tobago’s potential independence/secession and consequent collapse and demise of TT’s current archipelagic status can constitute a potential relevant equitable circumstance. This can now be introduced by Barbados before the tribunal to nullify TT’s use of its straight baseline mentioned above for a future boundary.

This is bad. But it is worse for elder statesman Robinson to have proceeded to conclude quite erroneously that Tobago’s potential EEZ claims, when independent, would make it larger than Trinidad. That statement is factually incorrect and patently misleading to Trinbagonians. God forbid, but if Mr Robinson’s coded secessionist message is realised, in spite of his caveat, Trinidad’s EEZ jurisdiction will be enormously larger. However, the extent of the coastal state’s EEZ is not included in determining its area. Mr Robinson must bridle his penchant for speculation especially while mounting a platform hosted by His Excellency the President.

Sometime ago in 1989 while PM in the NAR administration Mr Robinson publicly advocated the use of the median line to draw a boundary with Barbados that TT then and now opposes. For THA Secretary Orville London (Newsday October 16, p9) to have joined in this eminently unpatriotic, sterile discussion, for which he has no political mandate, in order to provide fodder for the secessionist fringe in Tobago is tantamount to the Bojpuri concept of assal neemakharamism (pure ungratefulness). Is TT not in the vanguard of the regional and sub-regional integration demarche? Are we not regrettably polarised ethnically to have to deal with a potential separatist agenda? Is Mr London introducing the “break away” theme to galvanise support ahead of the upcoming THA elections having failed with his third seat.

“THA election” scenario? What prevents St Patrick County from seceding as well and joining Venezuela or County of Nariva-Mayaro from doing the same and claiming ownership of the South East Coast off-shore oil/gas fields as being its own? If force will not be used in Tobago to restore sanity it cannot and should not be used against the Mayaro brothers. As a former President Mr Robinson has an obligation to promote national cohesiveness and the territorial integrity of Mother TT. In this the type of harmony that the National Discovery Committee wants to inculcate in TT?

STEPHEN KANGAL
Caroni