DO NOT REPEAT THE LIES OF LIARS

Surely, it is not far-fetched to conclude that our politicians think us imbecilic amnesiacs — unable to detect ridiculous lies; half-truths and innuendo when we hear them and believers only in their version of history.

We are their Iraqi TV audience and they are our Baghdad Bobs, one of the pet names for the pleasant former Iraqi Information Minister, adored for eloquently denying until the very last, that the US had conquered his country. Their spin must become our reality. Therefore, when UNC leader Basdeo Panday got up on a Freeport platform last Monday and told us that timid House Speaker, Barendra Sinanan, was the most biased presiding officer ever, we were supposed to buy it. Completely. Never mind that to most of us, Sinanan is a man willing to take UNC blows every Friday while always pulling his own punches. A man prepared to let the House sink into chaotic disrepute as he did on Friday when he allowed UNC MP Kelvin Ramnath to blatantly defy him and to reduce the Office of Speaker to impotence. If the Waning Sun boss, Basdeo Panday al Sahaf, pronounced Sinanan unfair, the Speaker was. We were to forget on command that presiding officers always served their Governments, some more slavishly than others. Moreover, we were to believe that Speakers as prejudiced as Dr Rupert T Griffith never existed. In Panday’s new history of TT’s Parliament, there was never a Speaker Griffith who abused his power to silence the Opposition.

This, I imagine, is Baghdad Bas’ version of what happened in 2001. “These PNM cowards have no morals,” he would declare. “They have no shame about lying. There was never a Griffith. This is an illusion ... they are trying to sell to the voters an illusion.” Griffith, according to the UNC misleader, never sent then Opposition PNM MP for Diego Martin Central, Ken Valley to the Privileges Committee in May 2001 for alleging that he, Panday, had tampered with that year's list of Coast Guard recruits. It was not Griffith who ruled that Valley had made statements “without due care and attention, and did negligently assert in the House something about the conduct of another Member, which he claimed to be true, but which turned out to be false.” Panday al-Sahaf's account probably would be: “They are sick in their minds. I say to you this talk is not true. This is part of their sick Balisier mind. Valley was not even within 100 miles of the Privileges Committee. There is no Privileges Committee, except the one Speaker Sinanan sent Kelvin Ramnath to last month.” It was definitely not the same Griffith two weeks later — when Panday accused PNM MP Colm Imbert of owning “paper companies involved in regional fraud” — who instantly protected his Prime Minister. It was not Rupert T, who after thumbing through his Order Book, decided that Panday was guilty of no contravention of Standing Order 36 (5), which prohibits a member from imputing improper motives to a peer.

This is the truth of May 2001, according to Baghdad Bas, “Just look carefully at what really happened. I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them. I would never accuse anyone wrongly. It is Barry Sinanan who is allowing members like Camille Robinson-Regis to say deceptive things about UNC MPs, even when they happen to be true.” Again, only a week after saving Panday, it was not Griffith who made it clear he would never fail to protect the former PM and the UNC. It was never, during late May 2001 that PNM MP for Diego Martin West; Keith Rowley was suspended from the House. Rowley never accused then Attorney General, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj of knowing the contract for the construction of the Piarco airport was null and void but yet “pole-vaulting on principle” by staying in the Cabinet and allowing “them to carry on and rape the Treasury.” Griffith never asked Rowley to withdraw his “unparliamentary language.” Moreover, when Rowley did not deny his language was unparliamentary or insulting to anyone, Griffith did not order the MP to discontinue his contribution. It is not recorded in Hansard that the former Speaker demanded the PNM MP leave the Chamber for the remainder of the sitting. Not if we are to believe Panday al Sahaf. Nor was it Griffith, who when Rowley refused to withdraw, who asked the then UNC Attorney General, Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj to move a motion to suspend the PNM man. The motion was never forthwith put and the PNM MP never ejected indefinitely. It certainly was not Griffith, who in early June 2001, barred Rowley's colleague Fitzgerald Hinds, from the rest of the sitting because Hinds exited the Chamber to attend a caucus meeting when Griffith was “on his feet.” “Manning...is accusing us of suspending PNM MPs,” Panday al Sahaf would say. “We want to tell him that we never suspended anybody. They were either killed in battle, most of them get killed because they are cowards anyway, and the rest they just get captured. That day in May we slaughtered them with the Piarco Airport. Now Sinanan is trying to suspend Ramnath. But, we will make the coward Sinanan drink poison inside the Red House walls.”

Panday would further explain that in July 2001, Griffith never rebuked Rowley for “imputing improper motives” when he accused Panday of presiding over UNC wrongdoing:  “I blame the media — they are marketing for the PNM! Anyway, the infidel Rowley only deserves to be hit with shoes.”  In addition, according to Panday, the parliamentary events of October 5, 2001 were press propaganda. The UNC Government was not defeated on three bills and new UNC whip, Ganga Singh did not ask the House to be suspended indefinitely. The PNM did not call for a “division!” so the vote of each member could be individually recorded. Griffith never ignored their petition and did not illegally adjourn the House indefinitely. The then Opposition People’s National Movement simply did not understand procedure. “Desperate PNM!” Baghdad Bas would shout. “When we were making the law, when we were writing the literature and the mathematics, the grandfathers of Manning and little Rowley were scratching around in caves. We never break the law. God will roast their stomachs in hell.” He would continue: “They will say any lie to win the local election. However, we are driving them back from Caroni. We are making them commit political suicide in Siparia. They will have to surrender or be burned in their maxis.” And, Baghdad Basdeo Panday al Sahaf would conclude: “No I am not scared of the PNM and neither should you be! It's the truth I tell you.”