Two brothers who went into the Moruga forests three weeks from each other are still missing and worried relatives are fearing the worst. Both brothers are gardeners. Victor Ramlal, 42, the missing men’s brother broke down in tears while speaking with Newsday yesterday about the mysterious disappearance of his younger siblings — Chris Ramlal, 37, and Kishan Chabilal, 23.
Both men were living at Figarie Trace, Bassetere, Moruga. Ramlal said around 7 am on June 27, Chris left home to attend to his garden located in the Moruga forests. He never returned home. The following day, Kishan went into the forest in search of Chris. Kishan returned home and told relatives he saw two men whom he knew and who were armed with cutlasses. Kishan reported that he hid in bushes when he saw the three cutlass-toting men. A week after Chris went missing a group of 12 people including Victor and Chabilal went searching daily from sunrise to sunset.
Victor told Newsday that sometime in the middle of July, Kishan got information on the whereabouts of their missing brother and went back into the forests to continue searching. Kishan never returned home. The brothers’ disappearance has left the family with many unanswered questions and sleepless nights. Victor is now appealing to the National Security Minister to assist in putting together a proper search party comprising soldiers and trackers, to go and look for his missing brothers. “The police have the full report and written statements that they can work with,” Victor said. He also claimed that police had been promising to carry out a massive search, but nothing has been done. Victor also denied that his brothers were involved in any illegal activities. “They are cool fellas, they were not involved in anything illegal,” Victor said.
Former Court of Appeal judge Justice Anthony Lucky will be sworn in today as a judge of the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea. The swearing-in ceremony will take place in Hamburg, Germany, where the court is based.
Justice Lucky and his wife Cintra, flew out of New York on Friday for the ceremony. They were joined over the weekend by their eldest daughter Cindy-Ann, her husband Dr Lancelot Patrick and one-year-old daughter Isabel, who live in Canada. Justice Lucky was elected to the position by 92 of the 96 representatives of the contracting nations during a secret ballot at the United Nations headquarters in New York on September 2. The 63-year-old Court of Appeal judge has a strong legal background on the law of the sea and will join 20 other judges who constitute the tribunal and meet twice annually in New York. However, the Court sits in Hamburg, Germany when necessary to adjudicate on disputes among states on maritime matters. Lucky, who replaces TT’s Lennox Ballah who died last April, is expected to serve out Ballah’s term which ends in September 2011.
Amidst rumours of a scramble for the lands formerly utilised by Caroni 1975 Ltd, Agriculture Minister John Rahael pointed out that the Government is doing all in its power to ensure the equitable redistribution of the former sugar company’s 74,000 acres of land.
Rahael recently received a report entitled “A Framework for Natural Development: Caroni Transformation Process” which was prepared following lengthy consultation between specialists attached to the University of the West Indies and other organisations. The recommendations of the report include the publishing of a plan to the public outlining how the Government intends to restructure the company. The measure is intended to ensure the transparency of all related activities. The report also points out the need for immediate consultation with displaced workers before any decisions are finalised.
The minister stated that the majority of the land will remain under agricultural use. The remainder he said will be allocated to housing, construction and manufacturing Rahael took the opportunity to reiterate the fact that the VSEP package offered to Caroni workers was the best separation package ever offered to workers in the country and highlighted the entrepreneurial skills and resilience of the workers in saying that he thought that they would be better off in two years than they had ever been before.
FOR a third day, workers employed by Caribbean Ispat Limited (CIL) engaged in a peaceful placard demonstration at the Point Lisas roundabout, Rivulet Road yesterday.
The demonstration was once again led by executive members of the Steel Workers Union (SWU), including General Secretary Wayne Roberts, who said that workers, while still dissatisfied with the Company’s refusal to discuss improvements to the pension plan, were now complaining about the “extraordinarily” high levels of dust pollution emanating from the steel plant. “Workers have started to complain about heavy dust concentrations from the ‘melt shop’,” he said, adding that the term “melt shop” was commonly used by workers to describe operations at the steel plant. Roberts also noted that the Union had been reliably informed that several facilities downwind of the steel plant had also begun to complain about the increased dust pollution. He said that the matter would be brought up at next Thursday’s meeting of the Union’s general council.
However, Roberts noted that management officials were still “refusing” to meet with union officials to discuss the workers’ main grievance — improvements in the Company’s pension plan. “Since the demonstrations started, no one from Ispat’s management have contacted the Union to discuss the matter,” he said. Roberts added that “stronger measures,” including a “work-to-rule”, were also being considered if the Company’s management failed to meet with the Union. However, in a media release yesterday, CIL noted that on July 5, 2002, “it successfully completed negotiations for improved Pension Benefits with the Steel Workers’ Union of Trinidad and Tobago.” The release also stated that among the items agreed to by both parties, was full pension for workers after 30 years pensionable service, an increased accural rate of 2.22 percent and an increase of the commutation factor to $13.50. “In this regard, CIL wishes to further advise that the above mentioned improvements came about in the wider context of Collective Bargaining negotiations for the period November 1, 2001 to October 31, 2004,” CIL stated. The Company stated that both parties had again met on June 25, to discuss further improvements to the pension plan.
THE DEPUTY Mayor of Port-of-Spain, Councillor Rishi Lakhan, is now Chairman of the Public Health Committee of the Corporation, replacing former Councillor Alvin Narine.
Councillor Lakhan was Chairman of the Security Committee for the last six years and as Chairman of the Health Committee, he is already creating an impact. At the first Statutory meeting of the Corporation held just over a week ago, he presented a report which showed that a number of matters were dealt with under his guidance. He and his Committee expressed concern over the length of time it was taking to have the dog pound facility repaired and called on the City Engineer to look into the matter urgently. The Lakhan Committee also requested that priority be given to construction of a new roof at the Public Health Department Building at Terre Brulee, and an estimate placed in the Estimates of Expenditure, both Development and Recurrrent.
The Committee also expressed concern over the condition of Victoria Square and were informed that attempts were being made to revitalise the Square through PowerGen, the Corporate sponsor. As well, the Committee called on the City Engineer to have the broken down rails at this square repaired as soon as possible, and to have Tamarind Square cleared at least once a week. Members of the Public Health Committee received a complaint of menacing noise levels emanating from the Deliverance Temple at the corner of Besson and Piccadilly Streets. The Chief Executive Officer was requested to write the Pastor of Deliverance Temple, advising him to have the building sound-proof. The CEO has also been asked to forward a copy of the letter to the Environmental Management Committee.
Meanwhile, leadership of several other committees has changed hands.
Councillor Peter John who was in charge of the Institutions Committee is now in head of the Physical Infrastructure and General Purposes Committee. Councillor Macdonald Morris now chairs the Institutions Committee, while Councillor Lakhan now heads the Planning and Development Committee. Two new members of Council now chair committees. They are Councillor Joel London — Youth and Culture and Alderman F Al-Rawi — Security.
A COMMUNITY-ORIENTED facility has been commissioned in the Couva District at 11 Camden Road, by Ralph Maraj, Co-ordinator at the Ministry of Public Administration, on Friday morning.
The ceremony, which was attended by high-profile police officers of the Central Division, members of the Couva Lions Club, as well as Scouts officials in Couva, will see the old Government quarters being used by three groups — the Couva Boys Scouts Council, the Police Youth Club, and the Couva Lions Club. Maraj told the gathering that “the Ministry of Public Administration is very pleased to have made these premises available to you and is even more delighted that you are going to put it to such good use.” The renovation work on the building is estimated to cost $256,947,00, and will be chaired by the three Groups under the umbrella of the PSL, according to Desmond Baxter, who chaired the function. Continuing his address, Maraj was strong in his belief that “this new facility will provide opportunities for the young people of the area to be involved in community projects and other meaningful and creative activities.”
Maraj noted that the “collaboration between the police and the community is a wonderful example for other groups to follow as it is one way of dealing with the problem of juvenile delinquency, which, if left unchecked, leads to greater problems and often tragedy.” He lamented the fact that “modernisation has been largely responsible for the decline of community life throughout the world and now we need to return to this bedrock of civilised living, if the world is to become a better place for all humanity.” Maraj felt that “there is so much that needs to be done in Trinidad and Tobago and we all seem to be waiting on somebody else to do it. “It is very important that we all contribute to making a living and a beautiful environment and to contribute to the overall development of our neighbourhood as when we create beauty we become refined in mind and body,” Maraj said. Maraj ended, “we must, therefore, enrich the minds of our young people.”
THE EDITOR: The authorities were very inconsiderate to erect barriers on the highway by Grand Bazaar to disrupt the lives of the people of the Bamboo settlement. That they chose to do so at the start of the school year reveals a lack of caring and foresight. Surely with their university degrees and flashy salaries they would at least have some common sense to match. There is a time and place for everything, and those barriers should have been erected at Mucurapo long ago.
The people were within their rights to protest, but were met with the might of the law. Some were roughed up by the police and one person was arrested. Yet, when a soldier goes into a bank and behaves like a hooligan he is allowed to walk away scott free and the matter settled amicably. If only the people of Bamboo could be so lucky!
SHERRY ANN LAKHAN
Williamsville
THE EDITOR: I write in reply to a letter from M Squires-Hospedales of St Joseph Village which appeared in the press on September 1, 2003. Squires-Hospedales takes up the cudgel on behalf of “ASPIRE” and all those whose first claim had been “pro choice” until the Prime Minister, the Hon Patrick Manning, said he was “pro life”. ASPIRE may now hurriedly stick the label “pro life” on itself to camouflage its true intent. But everyone knows that its ultimate design is population control. The Prime Minister’s declaration is an indication of his conviction that the unborn child should have the protection of the law in accord with the UN Charter defining the Rights of the Child. The unborn foetus in the mother’s womb is defined as a “child” by the United Nations. ASPIRE disagrees!
If ASPIRE is not advocating abortion, then just what is its goal? The protection of poor women? That is but another masquerade to hide their real intent and purpose. There are better ways, Squires-Hospedales, than foeticide! ASPIRE would have us believe they are “pro family” but encourage a mother, because of her economic need or personal health concern, to kill her unborn child. My reference to Learie Constantine’s statement about population control of Blacks by Whites touched a raw nerve in Squires-Hospedales, advocate for the cause of ASPIRE. The original banner under which ASPIRE appeared on the local scene was “pro choice.” Whose choice? Do they give the unborn child a choice — whether it wants to continue to live or chooses to be brutally killed and untimely ripped from its mother’s womb in bits and pieces?
Or to have its head emerge from the mother’s womb, the spinal column punctured and its brain sucked out, in order to comply with the legal requirement that the living, fully emerged child may not be killed? You hold that it is all right to kill the partly emerging child? In this there is neither logic nor morality. You, Squires-Hospedales, and your friends in ASPIRE may think what is killed is not a child but a ‘thing,’ a fish, or a zygote! You are wrong! It is not “poor women” who can afford the ‘luxury’ of killing their child in this manner, or ‘salted’ in the womb and turned into a dead, blackened corpse. I dare ASPIRE and its advocates to spend some of their funding to televise the documentary The Silent Scream. Let them prove they are really “pro life.” Let the ugly truth about abortion and the awareness of the unborn child, recoiling from the inserted instruments of death which seek to tear it to bits and terminate its life, be exposed to public scrutiny. Abortion is an abomination. It lays desolate a gift from God, a gift beyond price to a woman. Let it be seen what is the choice ASPIRE would offer pregnant mothers in our country! Shades of Herod!
Do not preach to me about what they do in Canada, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Belgium and Denmark, or in the USA or the UK. Shall we follow in the tracks of countries which legalise same sex marriage, which legalise the use of cannabis, countries which sell weapons of destruction to Third World countries to make internecine war so that the winner can sell cheaply the natural resources of the country to those who incite wars and sell them arms? They who cannot think for themselves slavishly follow the ways of so-called “developed countries.” I am no agent, propagator or facilitator for any foreign ideas or plans for population control or for the murder of unborn children. Herod is being made to look like a saint by ASPIRE’s design. Morality enshrines a higher law than man-made laws. The UN Charter which embodies universally accepted truths and guidelines, asserts that from the moment of conception until the age of legal majority, what is conceived is a child — NOT a thing, a fish or a zygote, thereby debunking the myth which ASPIRE aspires to promulgate.
I am not guided by man-made laws which are often based on expediency, may be influenced by lobbies and pressure groups or party financiers. I speak or write guided purely by my conscience and my sense of morality. I speak from personal experience — (one who has been blessed with seven children (now six). My children have been brought up always to stand up for truth and justice, guided always by the immortal words of Rabindranath Tagore: “Give me the strength never to abandon the poor or bend the knee before insolent might.” We have a duty to protect all unborn children.
BALGOBIN RAMDEEN
Attorney-at-Law
THE EDITOR: Now that the report of the Piarco Commission of Inquiry has been delivered to the President and is in the hands of Government, I hope and pray that the Government will act responsibly. I heard the AG say that the Report would be laid in Parliament. Fortunately, the Prime Minister has now said that until the Report has been properly read and digested, its contents will not be made public because people’s reputations must be protected. It is good to see that the Government has finally learnt the hard and expensive lessons of the Scott Commission of Inquiry and the two Deyalsingh Inquiries, all of which ended up costing taxpayers millions of dollars when Government was unable to defend the reports in Court.
If in light of the cases handed down by the courts of Trinidad and Tobago, the Government publishes the Report and there is litigation challenging the Report on the ground that people’s reputations have been tarnished and the Government loses in court, then members of the Commission of Inquiry who wrote the report and the members of the Cabinet who took the decision to lay the report in parliament or publish its contents should be made to pay the costs personally. Taxpayers’ money must not be thrown away by politicians anxious to serve their own political ends.
NEAL BURGESS
Diego Martin
THE EDITOR: Should government related boards be independent of government influence? This is a burning question these days. It applies to boards of directors of state corporations, as well as companies in which the government has minority interest. Firms that have a working relationship with government, but no state financial participation, are also included in this debate. Two issues are involved. The first is the government’s announced commitment to transparency and morality in public affairs. The second is a legal position — does the government really have any rights to tell boards of directors what to do?
Take the boards of state companies. Granted that the state can appoint whom it wants, it nonetheless appears that the founding fathers wanted to give these boards the independence to do what is right without political pressures or interference. Even where state appointed directors may feel a certain sympathy, they are bound by conscience and morality to do what they think is right even while trying to be aware of the opinions in certain quarters. But carrying out the dictates of overlords is strictly and severely incorrect, morally and legally. Let us go to the other extreme. What is the position of boards of companies that have good working relationships with the government? Is it right for government jefes to seek to enforce their wills? The answer most certainly has to be “no.”
There is a third danger here. Outside of morality and legality, there is the serious question of consequences. If important government officials have their way in persuading boards of directors to act or to make appointments as government wishes, then the immediate consequence is a loss of confidence by the board in itself. Such a quisling board would lose its independence and its initiative and would soon become nothing but a rubber stamp or a pipeline. This is tantamount to corrosion of principle and rectitude, and could be correctly described as corruption. What is even worse is that wrong decisions that boards may be forced to take as a result of political pressures, could undermine and even destroy the company itself, and produce serious shocks and cracks in the economy. This is a very disturbing consequence and that is why competent people on competent boards must be left to make competent decisions, as the present and moreso the future depend on it.
These forms of skulduggery traditionally swirl around the activities of political minions and those close to the power base, the so-called assistants to the Cardinal Richelieus of the modern state. Because of their prominence, they frequently get away with heavy influence peddling and mind-bending. That is why it is essential that the key people in any government must continue to keep their eyes on what’s going on around them lest they be accidentally gypped, and the country made to suffer in the process. Eric Williams is the one who insisted on morality in public affairs. We must never stray away from that concept.
PERCY DYER
Port-of- Spain
