By: FAIR SHARE FOR ALL

We need to put the brakes on. The federation is running away from us. All sorts of strange and unusual things are happening in the land that I love. We need a time out.

On Tuesday, 20 June 2017, a famous Kittitian named George Washington Archibald died. But his death and the contribution that he made to our society were not the big news. Not at all. Instead, the big news was the murder of a previously little known young man who succumbed to his injuries at the JNF General Hospital after having been shot down in broad daylight at the same location.

That was the big news. The breaking news. The headline news.

Following the brazen, high day shooting, a fidgety Acting Prime Minister took to the airwaves to make a statement that it “fell to him” in that capacity, to address the nation about the murder, only because it happened at the hospital.

“It fell to him” sounded to me like he didn’t want to do it. Maybe, as education minister, he would have preferred to have made the statement on the passing of “Washie”.

And as he read from the teleprompter, his hands appearing and disappearing from view throughout the whole statement, I couldn’t help but wonder, if the magic wand that would have made crime disappear once Team Unity had won the elections, had itself, disappeared.

Patrick Martin, MD
Student & Resident Citizen

Seventeen year olds are children in late adolescence. They should be buried in books or software development, not in a grave. They should be taking shots at goal or throwing the shot put, not shooting or being shot at.

The nation continues to reel under the burden of crime and violence. The prevalence of brazen and callous life-threatening and life-ending attacks unnerve to the point of psychosomatic illnesses. Cries for relief are increasingly desperate; people feel exposed because of the shooting in public places.

The crossfire has thus far spared the country’s hospitality-based economy. However, with shots being fired during football and in the hospital, a disaster waiting to happen.

Why are things the way they are? In its 2002 World Report on Violence, the World Health Organization stated “Gangs and a local supply of guns and drugs are a potent mixture increasing the likelihood of youth violence”. This formula applies to the Federation.

Trafficking in illegal substances, people and stolen goods is a lucrative business. The importation of guns is a natural consequence. Trafficking is also a risk to life. Compliance with gang rules is absolute and violations attract ruthless punishment, even the death penalty. Indeed, thuggery is immune to Parliament’s expanded penalty footprint. The mindset is kill or be killed hence the inevitable deadly feuds over product and turf.

The Federation’s current predicament was predictable and predicted. During an early 1990’s national consultation on the status of children, conclusive evidence of a looming problem was documented by persons working on the frontline of child health and child protection. Reference was drawn to the scores of toxic family arrangements where some children are radicalized to become thugs and other children pimped to get bills paid. The evidence and analysis were dismissed as alarmist.

Likewise, the obvious existence by the turn of the century of a violent gang culture was denied. Not surprisingly, there is lack of robust attention to the 30 or so girls who become new mothers every year – an indicator of pedophile tolerance.

Quite often one hears of parliament being referred to as a forum, but what exactly is a forum? The root of the word is the Latin ‘fores’ which means ‘without (or outside) the door’, and pertained to an enclosure surrounding a house. In its plural form (fora) the word referred in ancient Roman times to a public square or marketplace used for judicial and other business. That is according to The Oxford English Dictionary.In The United States ‘forum’ generally refers to a court or tribunal, but elsewhere and otherwise it means, generally, “a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged.” (OED)

Some of the key points to note and remember here are bound up in the ideas that persons meet for the purpose of ‘transacting business’ and, as a highly important component for so doing, seek to exchange ‘ideas and views’ on a particular issue or issues.
When our people go to the polls at general elections, they do so in order to elect persons they wish to have represent them in parliament, the highest body for the formulation of the nation’s policies and enactment of its laws. The people do not go to the polls to elect ‘ministers’, be it of this, that or the other.

Depending on the outcome of the ballots cast in an election what should happen is that the persons (or group of persons) holding the majority of seats in the ensuing parliament sit on what are known as the government benches, while those holding the minority of seats occupy the other side of parliament known as the opposition benches. Thus parliament is supposed to comprise and represent the collective will of the nation.

In order to give effect to the decisions of parliament, an executive committee is ‘selected’, authorised, and tasked with ‘executing’ those decisions. That executive committee (formally designated as ‘The Cabinet’) is led by the person who commands the support of the majority of representatives on the government side.

The very important point to note here is that ‘Cabinet’ is (or is supposed to be) subordinate to ‘Parliament’. Over the years a number of ‘self-serving’ individuals have played on the weaknesses, amorality aNd greed of certain politicians, and have ‘openly’ encouraged them to think and operate in the reverse manner, and that is a feature which has been fostered and played out across the region.

Many of us can remember that in the days of Comrades Bradshaw, Southwell, France and the many others, the parliamentary chambers were sited on a floor above that where the Cabinet room was located. It was a powerful, clear and unmistakable expression of the relative roles and status of the two bodies. Matters from Cabinet would then ‘go up’ to parliament.

The conduct of the nation’s affairs in The National Assembly is once again a cause for much worry. The rapid deterioration is a matter of grave concern, even to the most casual observer.

It has now become absolutely clear that no effort is being spared to frustrate our parliamentary opposition and stifle the voice of those who represent the majority of people in this country. As a matter of fact, the very composition of parliament, while it conforms to constitutional provisions, is nevertheless undemocratic.

And that points to the very nature of the constitution itself, one that was framed out of a burning and deeply rooted hatred of the vast majority of Kittitians and our long favoured politically organisation, namely The St. Kitts and Nevis Labour Party.

It is a document that was ushered in by a mismatched group of individuals, persons who, while very much a minority, had conniving eased themselves into power. Having succeeded in doing so they were determined to keep themselves in power forever, and in the process, they handed dissident elements on Nevis a whip with which to flay the people of St. Kitts.

Thus it was then, thus it is again today.

For centuries Kittitians have been wrongly and most unfairly blamed for the misfortunes of the people of Nevis and Anguilla, two groups of people who always readily complied with calls to move to St. Kitts and help to undermine the political strength of Kittitians.

There are (and have always been) certain Kittitians who have never had the real interests of our people (Kittitians, Anguillans and Nevisians) to heart, but who, instead, have ALWAYS been interested in political power only. Those are the ones who always promoted divisions in our people and our affairs, and several of their modern day ‘acolytes’ were directly involved with imposing upon us the constitutional arrangement which effectively allows the minority to exercise control over the majority.

Such a state of affairs cannot be allowed to persist.

How can it be right for minority elements to exercise control over and hold the majority to ransom? Are not those some of the major sufferings about which our forebears complained so bitterly and fought against so strenuously during the colonial era? Why then are we tolerating such mistreatment again?

In every aspect of human endeavor, there will always be traitors. Most often they are also demonic in nature. But does that mean that we have to accept such creatures and their behaviours? We of this newspaper say “not at all”. Indeed, as we always have, we call upon our people to stand up and fight for all that is rightfully ours. We quite simply cannot afford to do or be otherwise.

A minority group of persons, aided and abetted by an even smaller band of crooks, are simultaneously using and abusing us. They are draining our resources while building up themselves and their cronies, all the while continuing to mamaguy the gullible into believing that they are looking out for them.

It is time for the people of St. Kitts to stand up, use our power, and assert our rights. Why should it be acceptable for others to do so but not Kittitians?