The Manicou Report

Written on July 22, 2006 – 2:42 am | by Mani |

I warn you, this post is very long, which is a good reason why I shouldn’t hold stuff in. That having been said, start with the quote below.

<img src=’http://themanicoureport.com/images/uncboards.png’ width=’394′ height=’134′ ALT=”You don’t have what is takes like Mr Panday to do this. Please you owe it to him to give it all up as he has forgive..for the benefit of all indians.. and the stupid creoles that feel because pnm in power that they benefiting somehow..”>

Click to See Quote on the Original Page

So I was perusing the UNC website yesterday morning for two reasons. I wanted to research a sneaking suspicion I had, and also I wanted a glimpse of what UNC supporters were thinking. I do have a friend who’s a supporter, but two weeks ago I decided he was a complete idiot. It’s not that I don’t respect another man’s opinion, but he has changed considerably from when we were in secondary school together and….well, that’s another story altogether.

Needless to say, I needed a fresh serving of opinion. So I checked in on the message boards to

see what the web-savvy people were thinking and my, my, my. By the way, the PNM website doesn’t have a message board (at least not one that I could locate) so I couldn’t pull it up for comparison. The UNC board, however really makes you sit up straight when you take in how foolish people can be towards race and politics. Take for example the quote I screen-captured from one of the threads. The post, submitted by someone under the name “YuhCyahSee”, quite reprehensibly refers to afro-Trinidadians as “stupid creoles”. Isn’t it possible for someone to support their party without referring to people as “stupid creoles”? I imagine that the UNC website has webmasters and the message board has moderators. Yet this post has been up since April 24th of this year.

I didn’t stay very much longer on the site because things like that get me riled up. I begin questioning why people are so stupid and I can never so much as surmise a guess. It doesn’t have much to do with my post today, so I’m going to leave this here and go on to why I really went on the UNC website.

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A while back, former UNC minister Manohar Ramsaran made an absolutely ridiculous statement concerning the alleged “black caucus” that was ruling the UNC. In his statement he referred to Jack Warner as the one who was the main financier of the party and also to Daphne Phillip who moved the motion to discipline UNC political leader Winston Dookeran. These facts, he stated, were evidence of that “black caucus” within the party that was “calling the shots”.

Manohar Ramsaran

Now Mr. Ramsaran has apologised for the statement, but at the same time insisted that he was only repeating what he had heard others say. Granted he heard it somewhere else, but his stupidity came in repeating it. That statement with that kind of sentiment does not bear repeating by any respected individual save for the purpose of condemning it. Mr. Ramsaran was not condemning it, instead he gave it a voice. He didn’t dismiss it as racist or offensive, but he gave it legs. I believe without a doubt that Mr. Ramsaran knew it was inflammatory. And he would not have repeated it himself had he not thought there was some truth to it.

Now you might think that this is all old news, but the reason I am rehashing all of this is because of this Express news story yesterday in which Kamla is quoted as saying that it was the aim of the UNC all along to have Panday return to an active role in the UNC i.e. reclaim the role of party chairman.

This is why the UNC with its current makeup of Jack Warner and Kamla Persad Bissessar worries me. Mr. Panday is damaged goods. He’s a politician who could have done great things for his country but instead wound up with a conviction for corruption. At the trial, he offered nothing but shoddy excuses. He was subsequently jailed and fined pending an appeal.

Mr. Panday has nothing more to give to this country except a bad name. But this is the man that Kamla & Co. want to put back into a position of power. And to all those who will say “oh, well, it’s the PNM conspiracy, and they persecuted him”. Give me a break. While they were over zealous in prosecuting him, they didn’t make him sign a false declaration. Maybe some are gullible enough to believe that the money was a gift from Mr. Duprey, but not I. Denial isn’t a river in Africa. If you want to be honest and if you want to cut the bullshit, it wasn’t Mr. Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj who betrayed the UNC, it was Mr. Panday himself. It was his undisclosed London bank account that caused the debacle. In the body of one man lay both creator and destroyer of the UNC.

Then, what disdain could you have for the people of this country that you take that same washed up tainted politician, dust him off and then put him back into a position of power? It blows my mind to see what passes for politics in this country.

Basdeo Panday

Is that really the best they can do? To give to us a corrupt politician and Mr. Twist-Mouth Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj? People like this will never survive in American politics. They’ll be chewed up and spit out for lack of credibility. But here for some reason they thrive. It’s shameful actually. But who’s the real victim here? It’s T&T.

The reason I brought up both Mr. Ramsaran and Mr. Panday was to compare the two incidents as perceived by the UNC. In Mr. Ramsaran’s case, his statement brought swift reprimand from the executive. The UNC issued a statement saying :

The UNC wishes to stress that there has never been such a sinister block within the party. In fact, both the UNC’s stated policy and track record of performance indicate a recognition and utilisation of human resources based on skill, talent and other valued merits, and not on ethnicity or any other subjective or discriminatory factors. Indeed, the UNC is the only genuine rainbow party in Trinidad and Tobago, truly reflective and appreciative of the diversity and miscellany of our blessed nation.

I wonder how YuhCyahSee feels about that statement. In addition, they said:

Click to view on its Original Web Page

Unless you’re three years old, don’t be fooled by this condemnation of Mr. Ramsaran. I wonder if in the eyes of the current UNC, Mr. Ramsaran’s only sin is that he is a supporter of Mr. Dookeran. Had he been their supporter, do you think a statement like that would have received such a public and harsh reprimand? In Trinidad, political parties have a strong tradition of looking the other way when it comes to in-party sins and the UNC is no different. What else could explain the phenomenon that Mr. Panday has been tried, convicted and sentenced for effectively lying about a foreign account and yet did not receive a similar reprimand from the UNC hierarchy?

Kamla Persad-Bissessar

Not only did he not receive a reprimand, but nowhere on the entire site is there even a mention that Mr. Panday has had legal trouble of any sort except for the comments of laymen on the message boards. So in case you’re not keeping score: talking about the “black caucus” - bad, lying about a London bank account - bravo and may I add, encore.

If it happens that Franklin Khan and Eric Williams are also convicted, don’t expect a public reprimand either. They won’t be lambasted unless they’re deemed “rouge PNMites”. But the Kamlas and Warners of the world undoubtedly think they impress us when they criticize “the racist”. Kamla, do you want to impress us? Criticize Basdeo Panday for lying about a bank account. Do you want to show us that you are a fearless leader? Tell us that Mr. Panday, because of his long association with politics and having been Prime Minister, “ought to know much better”. Do you want to demonstrate that you’ll be tough on crime? Then condemn crime - even if it’s among your own ranks. Because everything else - including all those meaningless reprimands - is just smoke, mirrors and mamaguy.