I arrived at the St. James Police Station, and eventually was ushered into the office of a very overweight and angry Police Sergeant. He pushed a copy of one of the dailies at me, saying “You see that? That is what people like you and Elias (I was working for contractor Emile Elias) are doing!”
Perplexed, I looked at the headline: It stated that the new Minister of Health had announced that hospital staff would no longer be allowed to take home free “groceries” from the country’s hospitals.
Apparently, cooking oils, canned foods, detergents and linen were being openly stolen from hospitals by the staff.
Fat Sergeant continued: “My wife is a matron at the General Hospital. Do you know what this is going to cost us?” His anger was righteous. He had convinced himself that this ongoing theft by his wife was a “right” to which they were entitled.
So, why do I raise this story now?
Because I have just finished reading “1990: The Personal Account of a Journalist under Siege”, Dennis McComie’s book about the attempted coup, murders and looting of 1990.
One of the topics which Dennis addressed was the clear hatred of the Police Service for Prime Minister ANR Robinson and the NAR government. The police may have been angry with the Muslimeen for the bombing of police headquarters, and killing one or more of their own, but they were quite content to have the Muslimeen (or the army?) kill Robbie and the other MP’s.
Reading Dennis’ work, and the descriptions of the police attitude to the crisis, I was reminded of Fat Sergeant, whose wife had been prevented from “tiefing” hospital supplies which Fat Sergeant felt she was entitled to take.
In his eyes an injustice had been perpetrated upon his family, and “Robbie and dem too wicked”.
It is not a surprise to me, twenty three years after my encounter with Fat Sergeant, and twenty years after the looting, murders and massive gun distribution of 1990, that the police of today have extended Fat Sergeant’s premise to their “right” to take marijuana, cocaine and guns in police custody to sell and rent to criminals.
Dennis makes the point in his book that the current crime wave came out of the failed coup of 1990.
This is a point which I fully support, and I know that every Minister of National Security and every Prime Minister since then, and indeed every crime reporter in this country, is fully aware of this.
That we refuse to acknowledge this publicly is an expression of our cowardice, and our vain hope that it will one day just dissipate. But it will not.
The issues of the attempted coup of 1990 remain very much a part of us today, and until we open them up, and face them like the adults we want to become, 1990 and its ongoing aftermath will continue to damage us.
As we prepare to face a Local Government Election on the day before we pay homage to the fallen heroes of 1990, we are seeing the PNM doing what they do best: Spreading misinformation about the new government, and placing the blame for the economy upon the Peoples’ Partnership.
Just prior to the Local government Elections of 1997, I published an article about how the defeated PNM was already blaming the NAR for all the ills which the PNM had inflicted upon us.
And they had the full support of the Calypsonians in this, even though many of those calypsonians had been scathingly critical of the PNM’s failings leading into the 1986 election.
I see a disturbing parallel between the PNM’s current deliberate destabilization of the new Peoples’ Partnership Government, by already blaming them for the PNM failings, and the situation of which I wrote in 1987.
I believe I am fully supported in this comparison by some of the works of Professor Gordon Rohlehr. In his book “The Shape of That Hurt and other essays”, and particularly the essay “Apocalypso and the Soca Fires of 1990”, Professor Rohlehr catalogues the demonization of the NAR regime by the PNM, the Calypsonians and others.
This would lead to the clear support for the Muslimeen among the PNM and PNM faithful on the day they invaded parliament. The invasion of Parliament occurred on the day when PNM corruption was going to be discussed.
There is a lot more new PNM corruption to be discussed in the next few weeks. A word to the wise? Examine 1990 or re-live it!
Peter's columns also appear in NEWSDAY
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