Kamla, I have your back - the Peter O'Connor column

I have been amazed, since the NAR victory in 1986, how the PNM could make the population believe that the NAR was responsible for where the PNM took us back then, and how they convinced rank and file Trinis that “Robbie too wicked!”

But they did, surprisingly with the help of the media and the Calypso fraternity, and they did it so effectively that their campaign set the stage for the 1990 attempted coup.

And the PNM is doing it again, dishonestly setting up campaigns to sabotage the new government, even as the government struggles to find its balance and begin to move forward.

Take this prediction (I hesitate to say “prophecy”!): Kamla’s decision to establish a Commission of Inquiry into the events of 1990 will save her government and T&T from another such attempt.

As this Inquiry unfolds we will learn what we have been afraid to hear all along, although the truth was always there, hidden by men more evil than those who participated in the insurrection, the murders and the looting and burning of the City.

And this truth will teach you why Patrick Manning lay cowering and praying (it is said that is when he became “born again”) in a locked apartment in South all during the coup.

It will teach you that Manning’s fear came from the realization that he would have no power in the Muslimeen Government which Abu Bakr had proclaimed, and that those people were far more serious and dangerous than Manning had been led to believe.

And these truths will expose Keith Rowley’s current agenda, and should make us all determined that we are not going down that road again.

And “that road” is the vicious campaign of a defeated Party seeking to return to power via a campaign of destabilization and dishonesty, and by constantly blaming the new government for all the failings of the state of ruin left by the PNM.

Indeed, Rowley’s only hope lies in mobilizing his Party to demonize the government.

None that he leads has any loyalty towards him; he is the same man they bitterly attacked on Manning’s behalf and behest.

And let us not forget that Rowley brought their anger upon him because he exposed UDECOTT’s corruption, and caused them all to lose their “wuk”. And do not delude yourself that Rowley turned on UDECOTT in an outburst of moral outrage.

He was quite satisfied to support Manning’s ongoing corruption and mismanagement. It was when Calder refused to “take him on” and reported directly to Manning, that Rowley turned wajang. Hurt pride, not integrity, was more at play here.

So when Rowley now demands explanations, and insists that “promises be kept” and all that righteousness which he never espoused while in government, we must boo him off the stage.

And when he calls for the “immediate implementation” of the $3000.00 pension for all over sixty, we must wonder what scene is he on? He opposed that! Now he calls for it, so if it comes to the House, will he vote for it?

He is just stirring trouble, because if he was honest unto himself (Dream on!) he would say: “It can’t be achieved, and we said so all along, the Government is now accepting what the PNM told them”.

But he cannot rise to that level.

So the rumours will abound: “Dey cancelling CAPE, dey cancelling CEPEP”, just to stir up that lowest element in the society—the pathetic victims of years of PNM corruption, who have been kept poor and ignorant so that they would, like abused spouses, take a T-shirt and a rum, and support people like Manning and Rowley, and when the time is right, riot and loot on their behalf.

So, even as the Partnership struggles to find its balance and direction, and present its first Budget, let us all—calypsonians included-- never forget what Kamla and Winston and Jack really saved us from.

They saved us from a man and a Party who had no regard for us or our country, whose sole mission was Manning’s aggrandizement and the building of vainglorious structures while we suffered without water, without healthcare, and without a voice in what was being done in our name.

So, Kamla and Company: deliver the Budget, tell us where you hope to take us, and get on with your jobs!

Do not continue to be consumed with the immediate past.

We voted for action, not recrimination. And remember, you are losing some support right now, so listen to the people again, and get on with it!

I, and others like me, will work to ensure that their campaign of deception will not thrive this time.

Kamla, I have your back!Peter's columns also appear in NEWSDAY.