Hypocrites! Parasites! That’s my personal classification of the Saint Lucia Labour Party. Too much of what’s fake and misleading and destructive make up the personality and character of the average SLP follower. From one corner of his mouth their leader calls out for national unity and peace, while from the other he implores his troops to “protect the victory” at whatever cost.
“When you see them,” he says—them meaning citizens perceived as supporters of the United Workers Party—“when you see them, tell them ‘you lose!’ ” Is this any way to bring together a grossly divided country? By taunting them? By treating them as the enemy? By victimizing them? By turning every House debate into a fifteen versus two verbal brawl?
How could the leader of a party, who also happens to be the prime minister of the country, be so divisive? So shortsighted? Soon after the recent mass killings in Vieux Fort, he pledged to enact laws to give the police special powers. He also assured the beleaguered police and the concerned nation the “full support of the government as we continue to battle the criminal elements who are insisting on causing “haymen and havoc” in our country.” I am guessing he meant to say mayhem and havoc.
Was he secretly considering another Operation Restore Confidence or its predecessor Operation Restore Peace? Has he forgotten how both special police operations turned out? Has the prime minister studied the IMPACS report read to the world by then Prime Minister Kenny Anthony—the main cause of the demoralization that afflicts our police officers eight years later? I applaud those still on the force who carry out their duties regardless of the burdens placed on them by the Leahy treaty.
Speaking of which brings me to the parliamentary representative for Vieux Fort South, the scene of so many homicides in the last few weeks. He would do the nation a favor if he would resist the temptation to jump on every opportunity to pass the buck. He talks tearfully about people who “stigmatize” his beloved constituency and his constituents. Has he lost his ability to recall even the not-so-distant past? Has he forgotten the time when he was so frustrated by his failed efforts to contain crime in his own backyard that he publicly pleaded with the marauding criminals to “please give the people a break for Christmas?” Was he not stigmatizing his constituents then?
Is it possible the recent random killings in Vieux Fort may be connected to a certain politician’s reckless encouragement to fight “them on the beach, on the street, in parliament” and elsewhere? Again, “them” meaning those of us who do not stand with him. The same politician had threatened “there will be no peace” until the day’s government did his bidding. At one point he had even threatened a prime minister with thunderbolts should he initiate an investigation into the Grynberg scandal!
Now he says what’s going on in Vieux Fort is unprecedented. Which may be true. But was it not inevitable? Do you need a soothsayer to tell you what will happen if you add gasoline to a flame? To hear him speak in parliament about Vieux Fort “rising from the ashes” is to recall Nero fiddling while Rome burned. I’ve been speculating about the meaning behind his ashes metaphor.
Did he have in mind the ashes of his dead constituents, including a 2-year-old that died in its grandmother’s arms? Together they were hit by ten bullets, eight striking the child. What a horrific sight it was, what a nightmarish memory it is, a bullet-riddled bleeding female lying in a drain, full of debris, just another victim of another emboldened gunman. How do you rise from the ashes of crime casualties who had placed their trust in your pledge to keep them safe?
He talked about employment for Vieux Fortians, as if he were a newcomer and not the long-time representative of the town so many have come to believe is cursed. As if he had not had been a two-term prime minister and minister of finance. What work did he bring to Vieux Fort in all that time? Was he too busy convincing the electorate that general elections was code for “war on the Chastanets?”
I have always been of the view that SLP front-liners are in great part responsible for the anti-social behavior of the especially gullible, the uneducated and the malleable “poorest of the poor”. I need not remind anyone of the insane antics of the less-than-honorable members of the House, and our worst Speaker, himself not above issuing vile threats on TV against those he considers critical of his party. Who says neither dwarf nor giant is safe from his “bazooka” and every other weapon at his disposal.
Imagine a prime minister choosing to waste precious time talking about Facebook comments concerning an alleged godson during an emergency House debate over the life and death matter of the Suppression of Escalated Crime (Police Powers) Act. By the way, has anyone heard from the Bar Association lately? What a shameless bunch some of us have become. And to what avail? To get Allen Chastanet out of the House? Does it seem to anyone that Allen Chastanet has to be in the House to make his contributions toward a better Saint Lucia? What more does he have to do to prove numbers do not automatically represent strength and courage—let alone basic intelligence and vision?
