Lend me your ears

The good is oft interred with their bones. So let it be with Caesar.”

Those were the words attributed to Mark Antony by William Shakespeare in his classic play Julius Caesar. But we are not Romans here, nor Englishmen from Shakespeare’s time. And here in Trinidad, at least, it is the evil that men do which is interred with their bones, and forgotten; and it is the good, or such good as we can acclaim, which lives after them. And so let it be with Kelvin Ramnath.

In Trinidad and Tobago there are two certainties in life. One is that we shall all die one day, and the other is that one’s “slate is wiped clean” upon dying.

I have no doubt of the sincerity in the accolades poured upon Mr Ramnath, nor do I doubt that the accolades are true. But, as we close a week in which Friday July 27th was the anniversary of the attempted coup of 1990, we need also to reflect upon the part Mr Ramnath played in the aftermath of that event.

And I am making no new or startling revelation when I address Ramnath’s role in the freeing of the murderous Muslimeen following their arrests in August 1990, so let no one suggest that I am suddenly committing that most dastardly of Trini sins: “Bad-talking the dead”. I have, in addressing the issue of July 1990 on each anniversary of the event, constantly referred to Kelvin Ramnath’s betrayal of our nation in the aftermath of the coup attempt. I have not bestowed upon Ramnath the same level of betrayal as I have accorded to other leaders, both of whom were, according the coup leader, forewarned of an event to occur on July 27, both of whom were safely ensconced in their homes in south Trinidad when the Muslimeen invaded parliament, murdering Diego Martin MP Leo Des Vignes, and other innocent persons, and held dozens, including Kelvin Ramnath hostage for several days under appalling conditions.

We wonder what Ramnath must have thought about the absence of his leader—Basdeo Panday—who had fled to safety, leaving Ramnath and others to their fate, to lie, unfed, without any toilet facilities, under the gun and under the dreadful stench of rotting bodies, while gunfire regularly raked the surrounding premises?

While the hostages were being held, the remnants of the government were devising a plan to secure their release without further bloodshed. It was decided to agree to grant an “amnesty”, which some of the best legal minds in the country assured could not stand because it would have been granted under duress. But government also decided to publicly deny the grant of amnesty and “capture” all the copies of the amnesty document as they searched the insurgents who surrendered to them. The hostages were not searched, and Kelvin Ramnath walked out of the Red House with a copy, ungrateful to his liberators.

By the time the Privy Council ruled that the amnesty was worthless, having been granted under duress, the Muslimeen were free men. “Politico-legal” individuals with cocoa in the sun may question some detail of what I state here, but that is the gist of what happened.

Ramnath would later say that he regretted his action, but that was less an expression of remorse than the anger he felt at the Muslimeen falling out with the UNC, and supporting, via an acknowledged campaign of voter intimidation, the PNM in the 2002 election campaign. As we now all know.

Kelvin Ramnath did not appear before the Commission of Inquiry into July 1990, so we will never know why he chose to take the action he took and provide the documents which freed the Muslimeen. But as far as I at least am concerned, it is important that we do not simply allow his action to be forgotten, in some mawkish sentiment about “ill speaking the dead”. Those of us who have done wrong in their lifetime, but who escaped censure or punishment while alive, should not be permitted to pass on covered only with accolades of the good they may have done.

The evil that men do must also be permitted to live on after them. So let it be with Kelvin Ramnath, who should be remembered for all that he was the good, the bad and the ugly, and may he now rest in peace.