NJAC warns of people's uprising similar to 1970

The man who was a principal leader in the 1970 Black power uprising in Trinidad and Tobago is warning of another similar event.

Makandal Daaga, leader of the National Joint Action Committee (NJAC), told a public meeting earlier this week conditions today are similar to what existed 39 years ago and the conditions are right for another people's revolt against the system.

When he led the nationwide demonstrations in 1970 Daaga was known as Geddes Granger.

He was born in a poor, dispossessed neighbourhood in Laventille but was able to get a better education than most in his community.

But on Independence in 1962 he started to become disenchanted because he saw that little hand changed for the majority. In an independent Trinidad and Tobago Granger (Daaga) felt the oppressed remained oppressed and the social barriers that had stratified the society under British rule remained the same.

That created the passion that fueled the anti-government demonstrations against the "black" government of Dr Eric Williams and the dramatic social changes that followed.

The street demonstrations, looting and property destruction in 1970 led to the declaration of a state of emergency and the arrest of Daaga and dozens of others who were jailed at an offshore prison on Nelson Island.

Now the NJAC leader is sounding the alarm again, saying that a similar people's uprising is inevitable unless the Manning government takes action to deal with the UDeCOTT scandal.

"The problem here is your history. You have shown that you are capable of taking insult after insult, and outside of 1970 you would not revolt," he said.

He wondered whether people are really going to continue to remain complacent or whether they would stop "this once and for all."

Daaga criticized Prime Minister Patrick Manning for saying that those opposed to UDeCOTT and Calder Hart are part of a tyrannical mob.

"It is the total disrespect that Hart and the Cabinet has shown for the people of this country...there is nothing more heart-rending than when Manning stands up and tells this nation that it is a tyrannical mob that is against Hart in this country," Daaga said.

"Anytime the people of this country move, PNM or no PNM, UDeCOTT or no UDeCOTT, will have to bow under the feet of the people...so we are a tyrannical mob, then let's act as one and rip the blasted thing apart," he declared.

Daaga also spoke about the country's rising crime problem and reminded his audience that he warned of this danger as far back as 1982.

"The big problem is they're killing the wrong people, but nothing lasts forever," he said adding that "the time is going to come...when those guns are going to be trained on those who are bringing about the suffering in this land by those very same young men."