Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Gov­ern­ment’s han­dling of the mat­ters in­volv­ing Do­minic and Genevieve Hadeed and Star Sab­ga has di­vid­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go, and in­ten­si­fied the coun­try’s po­lar­i­sa­tion, ac­cord­ing to for­mer Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath.

Po­lit­i­cal an­a­lyst Dr Bish­nu Ra­goonath al­so be­lieves the is­sue has be­come “very politi­cised,” with sup­port­ers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) and the UNC view­ing it through sharply dif­fer­ent lens­es.

Both men shared their views yes­ter­day on how the mat­ter is af­fect­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go.

Bharath said, “This mat­ter has be­come more than a le­gal is­sue as it’s di­vid­ed Trinidad and To­ba­go in­to so many dif­fer­ent pock­ets.

“It’s come down to how the Gov­ern­ment in­tends to bal­ance is­sues of na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ver­sus civ­il lib­er­ties, how in­de­pen­dence of the ju­di­cia­ry is per­ceived at the end of this process and ul­ti­mate­ly how the Gov­ern­ment is viewed in terms of peo­ple’s trust for them. Yes, there are UNC sup­port­ers, but that’s not enough to keep a coun­try sta­ble.”

He said the is­sue has mag­ni­fied the lev­el of po­lar­i­sa­tion in T&T.

“To an ex­tent it’s al­most de­lib­er­ate by our pol­i­tics: the more di­vid­ed the pop­u­la­tion is, fight­ing on a mat­ter, the more peo­ple for­get about the re­al is­sues af­fect­ing T&T. It’s al­ways been like that - Gov­ern­ment have al­ways found ways to make peo­ple for­get the re­al prob­lems.”

Bharath said UNC sup­port­ers be­lieve the Gov­ern­ment in­her­it­ed a dif­fi­cult sit­u­a­tion, a view with which he agrees.

“But many of them feel ‘their gov­ern­ment’ won’t come af­ter them so they ig­nore the loss of civ­il lib­er­ties.

“The PNM feels this is racial­ly mo­ti­vat­ed, as the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al in Par­lia­ment spoke of the ‘one per cent’ im­ply­ing the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty in var­i­ous ways. The PNM feels there’s vin­dic­tive­ness, es­pe­cial­ly af­ter no charges were brought against those in­car­cer­at­ed, views that this com­mu­ni­ty didn’t sup­port the UNC fi­nan­cial­ly, that Do­minic Hadeed braced the Gov­ern­ment on tax re­bates and Gov­ern­ment re­voked cer­tain land mat­ters.”

He said many peo­ple out­side the tra­di­tion­al UNC and PNM sup­port bases are in­stead ask­ing whether there was cred­i­ble ev­i­dence, whether emer­gency pow­ers were used ap­pro­pri­ate­ly and whether the Ju­di­cia­ry is func­tion­ing as it should.

“Nor­mal peo­ple are ques­tion­ing de­ci­sions and whether the Ju­di­cia­ry is po­lit­i­cal­ly in­flu­enced or not,” Bharath said, not­ing that one Court of Ap­peal ruled the de­tainees should be freed while an­oth­er lat­er ruled they should re­main in cus­tody.

He said if the ev­i­dence ul­ti­mate­ly sub­stan­ti­ates the Gov­ern­ment’s claims, some pub­lic con­fi­dence in the State could be re­stored. How­ev­er, if those claims are not sub­stan­ti­at­ed, peo­ple will be­lieve there was ex­ec­u­tive over­reach by the UNC Gov­ern­ment and that it and law en­force­ment act­ed vin­dic­tive­ly.

“It will de­ter­mine in­vestor con­fi­dence and fur­ther harm re­la­tion­ships with the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty and oth­er mi­nor­i­ty groups who will start be­ing fear­ful. One must al­so con­sid­er the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty’s take on the rule of law in T&T and pre­dictabil­i­ty from a le­gal and eco­nom­ic stand­point. So this isn’t a small thing,” Bharath added.

Ra­goonath: PNM sees jobs; UNC sees com­pe­ti­tion

Ra­goonath said some PNM sup­port­ers may view the Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty pri­mar­i­ly as em­ploy­ers.

“As far as they’re con­cerned, the Gov­ern­ment go­ing af­ter them (Syr­i­an-Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty) is go­ing to jeop­ar­dise their em­ploy­ment. I went to one of those Syr­i­an-owned busi­ness­es in Port-of-Spain, and I was told: ‘Is on­ly black peo­ple get em­ployed here.’ So Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions may be seen as un­der­min­ing em­ploy­ment for PNM sup­port­ers.”

On the UNC side, Ra­goonath said sup­port­ers may in­ter­pret the Gov­ern­ment’s ac­tions dif­fer­ent­ly.

“On the UNC side, they may be look­ing at it as an at­tempt by Gov­ern­ment to put a hold on the run­away Syr­i­an ‘one per cent’ busi­ness­es, who, as far as they’re con­cerned, are cream­ing off the wealth of T&T’s econ­o­my; and they may be hop­ing In­di­an busi­ness­es will emerge af­ter the sup­pres­sion of the Syr­i­an busi­ness­es.”

He added, “For ex­am­ple, or­di­nary peo­ple in the North are say­ing ‘let’s strength­en and start push­ing In­di­an busi­ness­es...buy Oa­sis wa­ter not the Syr­i­an wa­ter’. I haven’t spo­ken to the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, how­ev­er.”

Asked about the po­lit­i­cal im­pact on the Gov­ern­ment, Ra­goonath said, “I’m not sure the po­lit­i­cal ram­i­fi­ca­tions are crit­i­cal at this point in time be­cause we’re too far away from elec­tion and what­ev­er else. The Gov­ern­ment will con­tin­ue to do what­ev­er it thinks it needs to do and the Op­po­si­tion will con­tin­ue to op­pose.”