Rowley's Denial - the Peter O'Connor column

Before I am accused of being overly critical of Dr. Keith Rowley, let me acknowledge that his call for the People’s Partnership government to “accept some responsibility” for the ongoing protests and problems is absolutely correct. Indeed, most supporters of the current government are in agreement with that statement.

However, I take issue with him when he stands and declares, his hands held up with palms facing outwards to indicate his openness and sincerity, that the PNM is in no way part of the ongoing street protests and trade union intransigence. 

I fully accept that the PNM may not have sat in council and discussed how to sabotage the government of Trinidad and Tobago in a formal way. However, I and thousands of others, especially those of us who were around in the years 1987 to 1991, are well aware that the PNM worked to destabilize the government then, and are doing it again.

As Rowley well knows, the act of “opposing” the government in order to weaken the state and subtly encourage strife, is not a difficult thing to do. 

And a Party as experienced as is the PNM can provide the perfect “mix” to achieve this. From the top, with their expressions of “righteous” horror at issues of apparent nepotism, cronyism, and assumed corruption in procurement issues, through their newly discovered awareness that labour needs better wages, down to the street protests for improved infrastructure, the PNM has directed a multi-faceted attack upon the government from day one.

And I am not suggesting that governments, or indeed this PP government should not be criticized. What concerns me, more today than when I wrote a similar thesis in September 1987, is the intensity of the barrage of hostilities against a government which still rates as “popular” in political polls.

When Keith Rowley stands and delivers a message for the Commemoration of Emancipation Day, and states that the PP government is reverting to slavery in the current standoff with labour, I wonder at his motive. 

Surely he should know that he was mocking and trivializing the horrors of slavery by suggesting that today’s working class in T&T is being taken back there? 

In my view, it was this message from Rowley which caused a few people to boo the Prime Minister (to the embarrassment of the Emancipation Support Committee) when she attended the Emancipation Celebrations in Port of Spain. And this was clearly Rowley’s intention.

In his partisan political speech for a National Holiday, he omitted to mention his own government’s denial of increases for the working class in a time of plenty.

When Paula Gopie-Scoon, as an opposition MP, shows concern for the people of her constituency when they protest for roads, we must wonder what was her function as their representative while in government? Or indeed, that of the PNM, which has “misrepresented” Point Fortin from 1956 until the present, except for a short break from 1986 to 1991? 

And Gopie-Scoon suddenly finds her voice on their behalf? 

And it matters not whether she was their representative for ten years or four years. Zero representation in ten or Zero in four is still Zero… with a capital Z. But she self-righteously sends subliminal messages of support to the protestors: “this government is ignoring you!”

And what about Rowley telling us that “local government is not doing enough” regarding the current dengue outbreak? Local government did not even exist under the PNM, notwithstanding it was Manning’s wife supposed to be in charge there. 

You ever spoke about that, Keith Rowley? 

Communities, from Carenage to Cedros, and from Laventille to La Brea, were all totally neglected by every PNM government. So, please do not suddenly, and righteously assign blame for drains. Go and try to clean your own constituency, for that would be a sincere act— if you could do it.

But let us go back to the ongoing criticisms of the current government, many deserved, I admit, but it is not the PNM who should criticize, they who sat emasculated while their leader and Calder Hart ripped us all off, with the vocal support of now re-born trade-unionist Michael Annisette. 

Kamla and her team, even as a “pick-up-side”, have shown themselves to be inexperienced, have attacked each other in public, and have stumbled on several issues, some important and some trivial. 

In attacking them, the PNM has made much of this “inexperience” and “newness”. But if the PNM was “experienced”, how did this much-vaunted experience benefit the people when they were in power? 

Their failing in everything, by such an “experienced party” is their tragedy, and sadly, our legacy to try to correct.

And instead of using this “experience” to help the country, they are, despite their denials, working, once again, to bring down an elected government.