Panday must get back on track

THE EDITOR: It can be justifiably argued that the scourge of crime is the major issue confronting our nation today.  Its tentacles have transcended race as well as political affiliation. There is no doubt that the Government has no solution to the problems that face us as a nation.  They have admitted that much if one is to judge by the comments of the National Security Minister, Martin Joseph, at his recent press conference.  There is a general consensus that a solution lies with the passage of new legislation that would give effect to reform of the Police service and amendment of the Anti-Kidnapping Bill, which seeks to make kidnapping a non-bailable offence.  There have been calls from several quarters for the politicians to come together to pass the necessary legislation in Parliament so that we can return this country to its once beautiful place in the sun. 

At the funeral of the late Ashmead Baksh, his uncle appealed to the leaders to come together to solve this problem of crime.   At the recent Indian Arrival Day observances, on several platforms, including those staged by the NCIC and the Maha Sabha, calls were made for the leaders in our societies to come together to assist our nation.  At a press conference following the return of Saada Singh, the four-year-old child that was kidnapped, a similar appeal was made by the grandfather to the politicians to do something.  At a recent political meeting of the UNC held at the Carapo Village, Opposition MP for St Augustine, Winston Dookeran made an appeal for the coming together of the Politicians to attack the crime scourge that continues to plague this country.

Do you know what is amazing in all these appeals?  It is the language in which these appeals are couched.  They are all appealing for politicians to come together, when they know full well that the appeal should be made to Basdeo Panday to forget his personal animosity and his vendetta to get back at the PNM and work in the interest of the nation.  No one has the testicular fortitude to call on Basdeo Panday personally support the requisite legislation for a peaceful nation.  The country knows full well that the PNM is prepared to introduce Bills in Parliament that most believe will assist in restoring our country to normalcy.  Yet, everyone is calling on the politicians, not Basdeo Panday.  What Panday wants in the UNC Panday gets.  How can men of respectability and integrity in the party continue to support a leader that is bent on destroying the remnants of a once great party?  I mean, what is the position of the Honorable Gerald Yetming and Winston Dookeran on the current issue?  Do they agree with the irresponsible utterances of their leader on the issue of crime?  Wise men need to speak now.  Our Nation is in an abyss of crime and turmoil and yet our leaders continue to fail us.

I am appealing to those parliamentarians within the UNC who continue to command respect from the population to speak now.  Panday continues to preside over a party that has been discredited for its actions while in Government.  The party can regain some semblance of respect and admiration if it were to support the legislation that everyone believes will assist the police service and the courts in dealing with the criminals. Panday’s mantra is now discrimination.  It was, before, Constitutional Reform.  What Panday really wants is Proportional Representation.  He feels that “he’s in majority” according to his statement at the end of the march at Mid Center Mall.  Proportional Representation will give him the power once again that he so easily handed to the PNM on a platter. 

Panday misses the trappings of office and power and he will attempt to destroy everyone and everything in his path towards the end.  He accuses the PNM of using the Courts and the Police to persecute senior members of his government. Yet it’s the same court that decided in favour of MPs Ramsarran and Rafeeq.  It is the same courts that granted bail to high profile financiers of his party in the ungodly hours of the night.  It is the same courts that continue to deliver judgments in the constitutional courts against this PNM government. Ask Anand Ramlogan.  As part of his civil disobedience call, he instructed his MPs to boycott functions that are attended by government Ministers. Yet he is present.  Panday has now made a full circle from when he started in the mid -seventies.  His favorite terms — alienations, oppression, discrimination and corruption — have all returned to his political vocabulary now that he has returned as Leader of the Opposition, a title he cannot come to terms to accept.  The only term missing is “parasitic oligarchy.” I wonder why? All his calls for boycotts have failed. 

Members of the UNC must begin to analyse their position on the current situation and decide for themselves what is best for our nation.  Is it the continued ramblings of a bitter old man who has failed us as a national leader in general and a tribal leader in particular. His latest call to arm citizens with guns to protect themselves as a solution to the current crime wave is that of a desperate leader. Very soon the other MPs will parrot this call. Will the UNC continue to drift in an ocean of despair and despondency aboard a rudderless ship?  Or will we seek a captain who can deliver us as a people to a new horizon of hope and expectations?  Our children will not forgive us if we fail to save our country. We need to save our party from its leader.

ROBERT RAMSAMOOJ
Chaguanas