On Saturday Gopeesingh said he stands by his charge and produced what he said was the clear evidence. He revealed names of senior medical personnel who he said have been forced out of the service, including Dr Fuad Khan, who apparently was the person who raised the red flag that enraged Gopeesingh.
Dr Khan, a former MP, is one of the country's most respected urologists. He also served as a junior minister of health in the Panday UNC administration. He said he was bypassed for a urology job that was handed to a Nigerian doctor whose graduate degree is not in that area of specialization.
Khan is contemplating legal action and has retained the services of well-known constitutional lawyer, Anand Ramlogan.
Perhaps ethnic cleansing is too strong a term to describe what is going on. However, there is at least some clear evidence that Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been guilty of discrimination against people of Indian descent and some of their organizations.
This month alone at least three court judgments showed that Manning and his administration discriminated against people of Indian heritage:
- Acting Transport Commissioner, Pundit Haridath Maharaj won a historic victory over the Public Service Commission (PSC)
- Feroza Ramjohn, was denied an opportunity to serve in the Trinidad & Tobago High Commission in London because of a veto by Manning
- Ganga Persad Kissoon, a public servant with 36 years service, who was bypassed for promotion although he was the number one choice to become Commissioner of State Lands
The lawyer in all three cases was Ramlogan who believes the discrimination is becoming institutionalized. According to Ramlogan, “The glaring racial imbalance in the upper echelons of the public service statistically supports and fuels this perception.”
In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, Ramlogan said the system for acting appointments allows authorities to appoint someone to "warm the seat" without confirming the person, while the favoured candidate gets time to qualify for the promotion.
“The commission is supposed to be independent, but operates in a vacuum or ivory tower, as though it is unaware of the plight of those who complain about discrimination and unfair treatment...It has done nothing to alter the racial composition of the interview panel,” he said.
What's happening in the public service reflects Manning's overall attitude. He refused to attend Indian Arrival day celebrations and objected to the use of Indian in the holiday. He handed a radio station license to his friend overnight while the Maha Sabha, the main Hindu group, waited for its approval and eventually had to go to the Privy Council, where it won a landmark case and eventually got its license.
There are other cases, for example, the discrimination ruling against Manning for vetoing the promotion of Devant Maharaj.
It cannot be coincidence that all these cases have gone to court and in each instance the prime minister has lost. And there must be many more where the aggrieved person gives up the fight voluntarily for lack of resources to take on the establishment.
And here's one other tidbit. Manning told me in a conversation we had in Arima in 1999 that his biggest mistake in his first administration (1991-95) was that he didn't take care of "his people". He also said there were "too many Indians" at "Petrosingh", the name he used to describe what he said was the racial imbalance at the state oil company, Petrotrin.
When I pressed him on the first matter he explained that "his people" were those who had historically supported him and his party and continue to do so. In that context, he said, it was not an issue of racial discrimination, since anyone can be a member of the People's National Movement (PNM). But it was patronage, which is still wrong.
Manning's associates have no difficulty in suggesting that they are correcting a racial imbalance, a euphemism for blatant discrimination.
One of them - Dr Selwyn Cudjoe - even suggested once that black children performed poorly in school because Indian teachers pushed them to the back of the class and didn't teach them. Manning was present when Cudjoe made the asinine comment.
Budget documents created training incentives for young people, with preference to people of African origin. Manning called it a printer's error but Keith Rowley, who was at the time a senior cabinet minister and deputy leader of the PNM, stated that there was no error and confirmed it was government policy. And Cudjoe chastised Manning for not standing up for his right.
There are other cases that are less cut and dried. Manning's closure of the sugar company, for example, had some economic justification but was more of a political decision aimed at destroying the opposition base than one of economics.
And to date, seven years after the fact, his government has refused to provide lands to the former sugar workers, despite a court judgment ordering it to do so, in keeping with the terms of a separation agreement.
Then there is the case of the harrassment of former Chief Justice Sat Sharma, the attempt to persecute Marlene Coudray, the veto against the appointment of Stephen Williams as Police Commissioner, the objection to the appointment of Carla Browne Antoine as Director of Public Prosecutions.
Trinidad and Tobago is a nation built by people of all ethnic and religious backgrounds - African slaves, Indians, Chinese, Portuguese and many others. No one group has or should have any special rights or privileges over another.
The constitution guarantees every individual the right to join a party of his or her choice, to have dissenting views, to express opinions freely, to celebrate special events and practice their religions.
The words of our national anthem "Here ever'y creed and race find an equal place" now seem to be a lie.
Manning has been found guilty too often of discrimination. And it is time for the people to tell him that he is out of line and use all lawful resources to demand their equal rights.
Now is the time to do it; tomorrow will be too late.
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