The storm that had been blowing and strengthening in the direction of Trinidad & Tobago National Security Minister Jack Warner’s direction for the last five years or so, has finally hit him with full force. The former President of CONCACAF’s resignation as FIFA Vice President in 2011, signalled that he was beginning to perceive that all was not well. But having become a member of parliament in the major electoral victory of the People’s Partnership in the Trinidad & Tobago elections in 2010, and recognition by all and sundry that he had played a substantial part in achieving it, Warner no doubt felt, as many politicians tend to feel, that political office could shield him from pressure.
But Warner probably underestimated the extent to which FIFA and its President Sepp Blatter, under pressure as the organization was increasingly seen to be riddled with scandal, would take action, especially after Warner, no doubt sensing trouble, sought to support the now discredited former FIFA member Mohammed Bin Hamman against Blatter, when the latter sought re-election to the FIFA presidency.
Warner’s own resignation from the presidency of CONCACAF, however, suggested to many that he realized that his days as the Caribbean’s international football guru were over. In that regard his activities in People’s Partnership politics, and fervent support for current Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, and his fervent denunciations of anyone who sought to challenge his record at FIFA and CONCACAF, suggested that he felt that taking up residence under the cloak of Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar would also protect him from the increasingly howling winds outside of Trinidad & Tobago.
But Warner and, it seems, his Prime Minister too, appear to have overestimated the strength of local parochial politics against the forces of international politics. And the FIFA President and his organization, sensing the need to protect themselves from any local machinations of Caribbean national and regional politics, obviously played what now appears to have been a master-stroke. This was the selection of Mr David Simmons, a longtime Barbados and Caribbean legal luminary and then Chief Justice of Barbados, as Chairman of the Commission to investigate a variety of allegations that had been circulating for some time against Warner relating to misappropriation of funds.
The clarity and apparent certainty of the conclusions arrived at by Simmons and his investigating committee, seem to have left Prime Minister Persad- Bissessar little room for manoeuvrings that might continue to protect Warner’s position in government. That had followed the revelation that Warner’s own son had agreed to be a cooperating witness in investigations simultaneously being carried out by the American legal authorities, and it had the effect of increasing domestic pressure from both the political opposition and civil society for her to get rid of her adviser and supporter. What became clear was that Warner’s position in government, hitherto thought to be an asset to his party and Prime Minister, was becoming a millstone around their necks.
There seemed to be indications, also, that the combination of an international inquiry which the American authorities were undoubtedly closely following, and the simultaneous investigations which the Americans were themselves pursuing, began to suggest to influential persons and institutions in Trinidad society, that the very reputation of the government, and therefore the country was coming into danger of being seriously suborned.
And though it was no doubt accidental that Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar was in the United States at the time of the revelation of the results of the Simmons Commission inquiry, it would not be surprising if, after weeks and weeks of she and her Attorney General indicating that they had got no answers from queries raised by the Trinidad government in relation to Warner’s son’s position in the United States, a conclusion can be drawn. This is that it would probably not be far from the truth to believe and suggest that the US authorities took the opportunity to fully inform her of what they knew.
In that regard, the Prime Minister could well have drawn the conclusion that the reputation of Trinidad & Tobago was worth more than the implications of the protection of Warner, and that what appeared to be the case in relation to her country, was also appropriate to the situation of her government.
Persad-Bissessar seems to have been forced to throw overboard in the face of the external pressures building up, the belief, which the government seemed to hold for quite some time, that the activities and reputation of Warner were a local matter. And any feeling that Warner and the Prime Minister may have had that in the context of Trinidad domestic politics her government and party could hold its own, has been rudely swept away by the now obvious sudden, swift and almost imposed, recognition of another reality. This is that government, in our small and open societies, in this period of globalization and the telecommunications revolution when citizens’ personal activities can extend within seconds beyond the societies’ shores, can shield little from outside forces, and least of all, the intrusive forces of the American authorities.
The heading of the Integrity Committee by Sir David Simmons certainly removes any possibilities of suggestions of incompetence (as Warner initially tried to suggest) or of extensive American influence in its conclusions. A lawyer herself, Persad-Bissessar could hardly allow any such allegation to continue to assert itself.
The moral of the story is, that when we resist the necessity to clean our own houses, others, no doubt depending on how our dirt affects their own houses, will do it for us. And it is regrettable that what seems to have been an apparently necessary reversion to the old British model of colonial commissions of inquiry, has been allowed to raise its head again.
