National Trust Door Closes On Woman Pro! So ran the front-page headline of the Mirror newspaper of 10 January 2003. The accompanying item concerned a Saint Lucian female who had been the general manager of the National Development Corporation and in July 2002 had applied for the advertised job of Programs Manager at the Saint Lucia National Trust.
Her interviewer declared her “the most qualified candidate” for the position but offered her a salary she considered low. She suggested “slightly better terms,” she told the Mirror. Some time afterward she was offered a salary even lower than the original figure—with a warning that if she refused, the job would be offered to someone else. Also that if the new candidate was not satisfied with the salary offered her, the advertised position would be made redundant.
The young woman told the newspaper: “They said their second offer was final; non-negotiable. I felt neither the motivation nor the need to respond.”
She went on: “I accepted that the Trust might be financially strapped, that perhaps they were unable to meet my request. However, I found it unusual that it would advertise a vacancy, extend the response time, and then offer a salary well below the established scale.”
In any event, someone landed the job “on terms not much different” from what the first applicant had asked for. What really got under her skin was that a Trust official had soon afterward embarked “on a deliberate campaign to discredit me, making disparaging remarks about my past professional conduct.” Lawyers’ letters were exchanged in consequence.
“I feel I was misled,” she told the Mirror. “This matter has had a profound and personal impact on me and I intend to pursue all available avenues to have it appropriately resolved.” When the newspaper contacted the organization’s director for a comment, the most the official would say was that the issue had reached the hands of lawyers and consequently the Trust would reserve comment.
From the paper’s own perspective it seemed politics might be at the root of the problem. “Some of the highest levels of decision making in the country appeared to be involved,” noted its editorialist. “Does that mean politics is still being used as a tool to control and damage this island’s intellectual and professional talent? Hopefully the unanswered questions in this matter will soon be answered.”
By “the highest levels of decision making in this country” did the Mirror refer to the day’s prime minister? A member of Cabinet? A particular government official?
In a related article published in the March 29, 2003 edition of George Odlum’s Crusader newspaper, Laurent ‘Jomo’ JnPierre referred to “The Godfather of the Environment”—resurrected whenever local politicians, declared and otherwise, feel the need to profess interest in conservation and climate change.
This is how Jomo opened his article entitled ‘Standing up for Coco Charles’ Good Name’: “It is not in my repertoire to engage in ad hominem. I prefer satire, street theater, the realm of logic and the market of ideas. However, since Time magazine’s Person of the Year has proven whistle blowing has its place, I have decided to remove my self-imposed gag to share some light on the situation at the National Trust and the family of the deceased Gabriel Coco Charles. I was the Trust’s research officer and curator long before Giles Romulus became part of the landscape. I was there with the following individuals: Robert Devaux, Winnie King, Gregor Williams and, of course, Gabriel ‘Coco’ Charles, Eric Branford, Julian Hunte and so on.”
He stated further that he had “planted the plum trees on the Trust’s grounds, over the departed body of one of man’s best friends.” He was there, he claimed, “when Coco Charles was pushed into early retirement from forestry by the then John Compton administration.” Thus was Coco Charles “left stranded, a king without a throne,” Jomo recalled. “He had nowhere to go. The popular opinion was that the National Trust should absorb Coco by creating a place for him. But Giles Romulus would have none of that. At the time he was the project coordinator. He was the engine that generated much needed funds for the fledgling Trust.”
In Jomo’s telling “the whole environmental fraternity on the island and throughout the region was in solidarity, sympathy and empathy with Coco. We all knew he had courageously sacrificed his head to stand up for principle against the powerful machinery of the Compton government. Coco was our environmental prophet.”
By Jomo’s dramatic account, Coco had taken to task “the Compton administration and the National Trust about the dangers of unsustainable development and over-exploitation of the environment. Not like those at the helm of the Trust today, who seem to be dancing a strange dance with the powers that be.”
The writer, who by his own admission is a lover of satire and street theater, in his stand for Coco Charles challenged the construction of the Roseau dam. He also recalled Giles Romulus’ determination to keep Coco away from the Trust, enough to have said in Jomo’s presence that “he did not want Coco at the Trust; did not want to work with Coco because he was too radical, too outspoken. The Trust would have to decide between him and Coco Charles.”
But then while in Jomo’s opinion “Coco was a giant,” he acknowledged Coco “made mistakes and operated the Forestry Department as if it were his own business. Nevertheless he got scholarships from CIDA and Trinidad for those who later betrayed him.”
Jomo announced via the Crusader his decision to dedicate to Coco’s memory his MSc ethnobotanical thesis on the local latanyé broom. He proffered some advice to the organization’s operators: “Perhaps the Trust needs to be more people oriented, not just by bringing proposals to be endorsed by the public—but by engaging the masses in the decision-making process. My suspicion about the Trust is this: it has adapted a European and American model of conservation rather than one that fits our own local landscape. Many at the helm of the environmental movement in Saint Lucia are toothless dogs . . .” For all of the above, wrote Jomo, “I support the Coco Charles family in their effort to strip the Trust of his good name.”
Near the end of his article Jomo credited me with an observation that rightly belongs to Alphonse Karr: “Perhaps Rick is right when he says the more things change, the more they remain the same.” The satirist in him had a suggestion. “Perhaps we should name a new national park after Giles Romulus,” he wrote, “and put a halt to any further development of his waistline. History has a way of repeating itself.”
Keep in mind, folks, that Laurent JnPierre wrote his article for the Crusader in 2003—over 16 years ago!
As for Coco’s survivors publicly dissociating his name from the Trust, their signed letter was addressed to chairman Marcus Day, and dated 30 September 2002.
It focused on the organization’s treatment of “a young woman of unquestionable good reputation and a professional of the highest caliber reputation,” who had “distinguished herself in her commitment to the development of Saint Lucia through the excellent quality of her work in the public sector.” The Trust director’s attitude toward the woman had left the family of Gabriel Coco Charles “extremely bitter.”
The 2002 letter from Coco’s survivors featured the following: “I Margaret Charles, administrator of the estate of my late husband Gabriel Charles respectfully request of the council of the Saint Lucia National Trust that with immediate effect the name of Gabriel Lewis-Charles be totally dissociated from the Saint Lucia National Trust.”
Does any of the preceding sound like recent history, involving as it does another disgruntled distinguished family, the Saint Lucia National Trust, and a rejected job application from a young woman who just happened to be the older daughter of the country’s most revered environmentalist?
Yes, indeed, the more things change . . .
