Former Security Minister Comments on IMPACS: Prime Minister Was Weak!

Calixte George—not to be confused with a similarly named Red Zone-TV fixture and predictable opposer of all things not star-crossed —has long been considered a take no prisoners straight shooter. With Kenny Anthony, Philip J. Pierre, Leo Clarke, Lawson Calderon and other co- conspirators, he had in 1996 helped snatch from Julian Hunte’s “dictatorial” grasp the perceived comatose St. Lucia Labour Party. Together they had vivified its public image and renamed it “New Labour” shortly before grabbing control of all but one of the 17 seats in the island’s parliament.

As leader of government business in the Senate, as well as communications minister, Calixte George had been a major mover and shaker in the government’s historic contract negotiations with Cable & Wireless. He also had served as National Security Minister, responsible for the ever bewitched, bothered and bewildered St. Lucia Police Force.

In more recent times George had turned from partisan politics to concentrate instead on other aspirations. In 2020 he published a well-received weighty tome on the history of St. Mary’s College. But in the view of privileged observers his time is spent playing Don Corleone to Philip J. Pierre’s Tom Hagen.

What a shock to the nation’s nervous system when he called during the May 14 episode of TALK to speak publicly about previously mothballed matters related to IMPACS, arguably Prime Minister Kenny Anthony’s most controversial initiative. So much for the Omertà-like code of silence established in 1997 by the near paranoidal new party leader.

My guest on the occasion was Senator and National Security Minister Hermangild Francis, a magnet for media attention— moreso since the incumbent United Workers Party confirmed he would wear their colors in the impending “nastiest general election,” against Kenny Anthony—for almost a quarter of a century also the parliamentary representative for Vieux Fort South.

My initial interest in Francis as a guest was triggered by some of his responses during an interview with Radio 100’s Andre Paul—especially to questions related to his career as a police officer. Evidently underestimating his dangerously uninformed interlocutor Francis admitted, in effect, that following a publicized “incident” involving his wife, then prime minister Kenny Anthony had stood in the way of his elevation to Commissioner of Police.

Before the week was out a retaliatory statement had caught the attention of media horseflies on home turf and in the more noisome nether regions of the Internet, maybe because the micturating racehorse on the occasion was none other than Kenny Anthony, too often referred to by local newscasters as “former prime minister” when it would be more appropriate to reference him in his current circumstances as the SLP’s contender in the Vieux Fort South stakes.

Type-casting himself yet again as perennial victim, Anthony confessed his earlier reluctance to bring into the public domain “matters of confidentiality.” But recent utterances by Hermangild Francis, including his “insinuation regarding my motives and his admission of spousal abuse” had demanded Anthony abandon his cultivated Mr. Goodguy image in the interest of his official reputation and to “clarify the historical record.” Besides, he added, Francis had himself opened the doors to his own personal record as a police officer.

Then there was Anthony’s eyebrow- raising public confession that for purposes undeclared his administration had been “exceedingly kind and generous to Hermangild Francis,” for which preferential treatment he had shown scant gratitude. As for Francis’ reference on Radio 100 to the matter involving his former wife, Anthony revealed that a Canadian police officer at the time attached to the local force as deputy commissioner was “determined that Francis face disciplinary and criminal action for spousal abuse and assault.” Who or what had redirected the Canadian’s determination remains conjectural.

In Anthony’s telling, Francis was sent instead on leave, long enough “to calm the firestorm that had erupted as a result of the allegations.” He neglected to pinpoint the location and time of said firestorm, proffered no details of the troublesome allegations—only that as disruptive as they were Francis was nevertheless recalled and re-assigned Assistant Commission of Police in charge of Operations. Seemingly contradicting himself, an unusually vague Anthony claimed “it was thought Francis could not head the crime unit since he himself was the subject of criminal investigations for assault.” Who thought that? Anthony did not say.

He revealed that Francis left Saint Lucia after “a short while for the Faculty of Law, UWI, Cave Hill, Barbados”—where Anthony had held the office of Dean. As for the circumstances of his acceptance at the Faculty of Law and the concomitant benefits, Anthony promised to release details at a future date. He offered a titillating teaser: “Hermangild Francis was not selected on a competitive basis.”

He further recalled that between 2006 and 2011 Francis had “languished in Anse la Raye . . . until he offered himself as a candidate of the St. Lucia Labour Party for the Anse la Raye/Canaries constituency.” Alas he stood little chance against physician Desmond Long, also known as The Mighty Pep, winner of multiple calypso awards. By Anthony’s measure Long was by some distance “the superior and far better candidate.” Hermangild Francis was “too compromised and tainted to be a candidate for the St. Lucia Labour Party.” So Anthony believed in 2011, so he believes “even more so now!”

In his own defense, Francis assured TALK viewers he had “never been arrested, never been charged with rape or any other crime” that might’ve rendered him too sullied reputationally to sit with the respectable gentlemen of the St. Lucia Labour Party. Besides, Francis recalled, following his return to the RSLPF from Cave Hill— where one of his law professors was Kenny Anthony’s wife—he was in quick succession twice promoted. He not so subtly implied the “tainted and compromised” label would better suit some that the SLP had embraced over the years, and placed in conspicuous government positions. When his TV host reminded him of a story published in the STAR newspaper, based on a reported contretemps with his former spouse, Francis blamed himself but denied the marital spat had escalated to violence.

Suffice it to say it was an evening of discombobulating surprises, especially my guest’s recollection of how he arrived at a UWI law degree. As for that earlier cited Calixte George contribution, it began with the caller correcting my guest’s assertion that just one local police officer had traveled to the UK to interview British personnel for temporary employment with the RSLPF. “What you stated was not quite true,” George gently prodded. “I was National Security Minister at the time. The UK interviews were conducted by five qualified Saint Lucians.” Francis did not challenge the proffered recollection.

Talk about the current state of the force and its apparent inability to handle local crime soon brought us to the undead and unprosecuted IMPACS report first mentioned by Prime Minister Kenny Anthony in an August 2013 address to the nation, in particular its continuing devastating impact on police morale and on relatives of associated casualties. The opposition party had two days earlier called for “clarification” on the status of the report!

Shortly before Calixte George called I had cited the fact that at least six inquests into fatal police shootings at the time of Operation Restore Confidence had returned no-fault verdicts in favor of the police. In a televised speech on the evening of August 13, 2013 the day’s prime minister had said: “Where unexplained killings occur, our law provides for coroners inquests to be conducted by a magistrate to determine if possible the cause of the death of a subject of the inquest. In the case of the twelve killings earlier mentioned, I am advised that six inquests have been held. The inquest into the five individuals who were killed in the police operation in Vieux Fort is underway but remains incomplete.”

Importantly: “Of the six inquests that have been completed, the coroners returned verdicts of ‘death by lawful act.’ . . . Since the United States has decided to impose sanctions on members of the Royal St. Lucia Police Force, then it is reasonably clear that it does not have confidence in the outcome of the inquests to bring those responsible for the killings to just; that is, if there is a basis to do so. Clearly, too, the presumption seems to be that the killings were unlawful . . .”

I asked the retired former National Security Minister if he knew why his once upon a time Cabinet colleague had ignored the court’s findings—and that others into the Vieux Fort deaths were underway. Also, whether local court verdicts depended for validity on the U.S. government. I reminded him of our law that permits the reopening of inquests by the DPP.

Calixte George: “Let’s put it this way: the IMPACS matter is a question of pressure from the U.S. government on the prime minister. The prime minister should’ve been strong enough to say, ‘Look here, our people have done what needed to be done according to our laws and that’s the end of the matter.’ The moment you try something else . . . that is why we have all the problems. That is my position.”

As for the way forward: “We have to go according to what our laws say and forget about what the Americans may think. In any case, the Americans were not giving us that much help and assistance.”

“Doesn’t that make things worse?”

“Yes,” he agreed, “The only reason they gave us whatever they did was to help our marine police control drug trafficking in the interests of the United States.”

Two days after he called TALK, an online publication quoted the retired senator in its lead feature, headlined: Anthony Gave In To U.S. “If I were prime minister of Saint Lucia at the time I would have ignored the United States government because our judicial system had already made some pronouncements . . . On the basis the inquest had been completed there was no need for a further investigation. The prime minister weakened and tried to appease the U.S. government by reopening the issue . . . As far as I am concerned there is little anybody in Saint Lucia can do to satisfy the demand of the United States!”

Hopefully, Kenny Anthony will keep his promise in relation to Hermangild Francis and his law degree. It would also go a long way toward proving the SLP truly puts “the people first,” if he should tell what were the pressures placed on him by the U.S. government, and under which, reportedly, had buckled.

From the steps of the Castries market shortly after his 16-1 election victory, Kenny Anthony held up a particular edition of Dennis Dabreo’s One Caribbean newspaper that the new prime minister claimed had tainted his reputation. The cited defamatory article detailed cloak and dagger activities of George Odlum and Muamar Gadaffi.

This article first appeared in the May 2021 edition of the STAR Monthly Review. Be sure to get your printed copy on newsstands or view it here: https://issuu.com/starbusinessweek/docs/star_monthly_review_-_may_31_2021