Priest says he felt used and abused in 1990

FOURTEEN years after the 1990 attempted coup, Father Clyde Harvey admitted that the event had made him feel insignificant, used and abused. However, he said, he overcame those feelings by telling himself he was more than anything he felt at any point in time. Fr Harvey was speaking to employees of Tonca Bean Maintenance Company, a part of  the Community Environment Protection Enhancement Programme (CEPEP), at a team- building seminar at the Cotton Tree Foundation, St Ann’s yesterday.

The Roman Catholic priest told the workers that when they think about a team, they should imagine their bodies, which “was the perfect team with a head, limbs, torso and other parts which might be insignificant until they give trouble.” After asking how many participants felt they were important or insignificant to Tonca Bean, Fr Harvey said answering the latter was difficult for many and revealed “that in 1990 after the attempted coup I felt insignificant, with others using me to get their own way; I felt abused but I admitted to myself that I am more than anything I feel at any moment in time.” He said such a thought helped him triumph over situations. He advised that persons never allow their feelings to get the better of them at any time. Using as an example anger, he said: “You have the power in you to change that feeling into something else.”

Fr Harvey also told the gathering of mostly youths, to forget about using excuses and get the job done. He recalled the challenges faced by nine-year-old Chantal, a member of the swim team for the Goodwill Games with “one good foot and the other half the length and size of the good foot” swimming at the Presentation College, San Fernando pool. Touching on the subject of freedom, Fr Harvey said he was sick to see a photo in another daily newspaper claiming that people in “muddy costumes were free.” He said freedom to him was “expanding your space to use the basic gifts that you have . . . other than that we are slaves and we’ll remain that way.”

He cited TCL and CMMB as examples of companies that developed the capacity to care about their employees, noting that “when we work together there is so much more that can be accomplished.” Fr Harvey implored the workers to take what they heard at the seminar and put it together to become better persons as part of a team. Geddes Hinds, Managing Director of Tonca Bean, acknowledged the contributions of the employees, saying that without their input he could not do the job. He announced that the company was in the process of making employees shareholders. Other persons who were expected to address the employees were Errol Fabien, David Mohammed and a person living with HIV.