Since the General Elections of May 24th in Trinidad & Tobago, the country’s citizens seem hardly to have had a dull moment. With the declaration of the result on that evening, they were treated to the spectacle of the defeated Prime Minister Patrick Manning, a veteran of his country’s politics, being virtually chased out of the headquarters of his Party.
Then the new Minister of Finance found himself having to immediately grapple with the issue of the failure of the giant company Clico and the British American Insurance Company. The owner of Clico in particular, had gained the reputation of being an astute businessman, having inherited and expanded a local insurance company and invested in a number of well known companies, including for example Angostura, the Clico Investment Bank and the Republic Bank now a Caribbean multinational. True, Clico collapsed before Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s People’s Partnership government came to office. But the proposals offered by the new Minister of Finance Winston Dookeran have caused an uproar among policy holders and investors, and the government now seems somewhat paralysed as to what to do next.
Then in the face of the hurricane which trampled over St Vincent and St Lucia in the last few weeks, the Prime Minister herself created what became not only a Trinidadian, but a regional stir, when she appeared to insist that Trinidad assistance to those countries could only come in exchange for business opportunities for Trinidadians. Coming after her early insistence that Trinidad was not an ATM machine from which other Caricom countries could simply extract money, the Region’s citizens must surely have been wondering whom she intended to please by these remarks. A late apology did the trick however, and quieted the tumult not only in her own country, but well beyond. But no sooner had that storm subsided, than one of the more popular newsmen on the Government’s TV station got fired for getting himself involved in a contretemps with the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The newsman seems to have got the support of the citizenry, and the Government the criticism, once again.
Then as this last episode was tapering off, the public’s ears were pricked again when the Prime Minister announced in Parliament that the Strategic Intelligence Agency (SIA), the institution responsible for espionage or spying on behalf of the Government, as equivalent institutions do in other countries, had established a network of spying operations, particularly telephone-tapping, of obviously immense proportions. Outrage was increased when it became clear that the SIA was involved in surveillance of the telephone conversations of a large number of distinguished persons, including the President, the Chief Justice, a number of officials and private persons. But the spice in the announcement was the Prime Minister’s pointed accusation and denunciation of former Prime Minister Manning as the source of the authority for these activities.
It is undoubtedly the case that Mrs Persad Bissessar’s announcement had a dramatic effect on the population, and was to the obvious delight of her parliamentary colleagues, who no doubt feel that they have put what should be a final nail in Manning’s coffin. Controversy has been vigorously abounding on the airwaves, the Internet and in the newspapers. The SIA’s leadership has been dismissed, and there are widespread calls for a Commission of Inquiry to find out what precisely happened. In the meantime, Mr Manning has denied denial knowledge of, or responsibility for the extent of the spying. He has insisted that his predecessor Mr Basdeo Panday was fully knowledgeable about the SIA’s activities, and that Mrs Bissessar, as a sometime Attorney General under Panday would also have known, but he has been unable to quell public suspicion that he has not come out, as the public would no doubt like, with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
The response of the Opposition in the Parliament has itself been interesting. At first the new Leader of the Opposition, Mr Rowley, with whom Mr Manning was at loggerheads for much of the duration of the last Parliament, sought to distance himself from his former leader, and roundly denounced what had been discovered, disassociating his Party from it. More lately, he has tended to suggest that the Prime Minister has treated the matter in a manner as to suggest that her real intention in all of this is to pin the Opposition against the wall, and to make sure, as some observers have been suggesting, that Mr Manning loses all legitimacy for gaining the Prime Ministership again. Rowley has been arguing that if the Prime Minister wanted to get to the truth about what has happened, she would have taken an alternative route to dealing with the matter, since she is sufficiently acquainted with the issues pertaining to security intelligence to accept that much of what needs to be known cannot be said in public without prejudicing the efficiency of the SIA’s legitimate operations.
A leading Senior Counsel, and former independent Senator, Ms Dana Seetahal, has argued that much of the discussion on the matter is ill-informed, including statements that the Director of Public Prosecutions should investigate the telephone tapping and other acts of the SIA deemed offensive to private and public persons and their reputations. She has pointed out that the proper authority for investigation is the Police. But she has observed also that while the Chief of Police, a Canadian citizen recently hired, has been talking to all sorts of groups about the issue, it is not clear whether, as the professional involved, he has enlightened the public in any way.
Trinidadians, as well as others in the Region will be waiting to see whether consideration of the issue is located in a forum where excitement is not at a premium. Or whether, like the other incidents of Mrs Bissessar’s short rein, it too will have a short shelf life. Yet some are convinced that the political stakes are so high, that we will hear more about this particular episode.
