Wednesday, August 8 2012

THE EDITOR: About turn Daaga? According to Page 8 of the Newsday of August 3, 2012, National Joint Action Committee (NJAC) Chief Servant, Makandal Daaga, is reported as saying that he and other members of the NJAC were imprisoned in 1970 under the People’s National Movement (PNM) government. That is a statement of fact. However so as to not misrepresent the facts, the NJAC leaders were imprisoned only after the 1970 marches became unruly resulting in damage to various properties, including the desecration on a Port-of-Spain Cathedral.

By contrast in 2011, hundreds (or is it thousands) of young men from Laventille and Morvant and other districts were imprisoned under Mr Daaga’s government without having committed any illegal act. On this occasion, we heard not one word of protest from the Chief Servant, indeed, he was part of the government.

History records show that the man after whom the Chief Servant is named (The African Makandal Daaga) was first a slave trader who was later captured and who then, as a slave, made an about turn and became a liberator. Could it be that the Trinidadian Makandal Daaga, may now like his namesake, be making an about turn? The difference is that the Trini Daaga started as a liberator.

It saddens me to see my onetime hero.

JFA JULES

Arouca