THA takes first step to autonomy referendum

STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

To­ba­go’s self-gov­er­nance push is gain­ing mo­men­tum, fol­low­ing the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly’s (THA) pas­sage of a mo­tion be­gin­ning the con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum process yes­ter­day.

Last Sun­day, Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine an­nounced his in­ten­tion to in­stall a con­stituent as­sem­bly for a col­lab­o­ra­tive ap­proach to­wards achiev­ing greater au­ton­o­my. Au­gus­tine said var­i­ous stake­hold­ers will be in­vit­ed to the launch of the as­sem­bly and the ob­jec­tive will be to have a law passed giv­ing To­ba­go the right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion by the end of the year.

Au­gus­tine re­cent­ly re­turned home af­ter vis­it­ing St Kitts and Nevis, where he met of­fi­cials to dis­cuss what he de­scribed as the “pro­gres­sive” au­ton­o­my laws there. Un­der a fed­er­al struc­ture, Nevis has the right to se­ces­sion if a ref­er­en­dum gains a two-thirds ma­jor­i­ty.

Dur­ing a ses­sion at the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, THA Sec­re­tary of Strate­gic Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Trevor James laid a mo­tion call­ing on Cab­i­net to take steps to recog­nise To­ba­go’s right to self-de­ter­mi­na­tion and for the Sec­re­tary of Le­gal Af­fairs to be­gin the leg­isla­tive draft­ing process.

He said con­sti­tu­tion and in­ter­na­tion­al law ex­perts, as­sem­bly­men, civic so­ci­ety, busi­ness and youth groups will be con­sult­ed on the process.

James called on To­bag­o­ni­ans re­sid­ing on the is­land or abroad to show un­equiv­o­cal sup­port for the ini­tia­tive. He warned that To­ba­go has been and will be side­lined by Par­lia­ment if these laws are not passed.

James said, “Mr Pre­sid­ing Of­fi­cer, we are not seek­ing to di­vide the Re­pub­lic, we are seek­ing to com­plete it by al­low­ing the peo­ple of To­ba­go to speak clear­ly, law­ful­ly, and peace­ful­ly about their fu­ture. All To­bag­o­ni­ans and right-think­ing hu­mans should agree that the ul­ti­mate po­lit­i­cal au­thor­i­ty over the peo­ple of To­ba­go must be the peo­ple them­selves.

“In­her­ent in the sov­er­eign­ty of the To­bag­on­ian peo­ple must be to di­rect­ly ap­prove or re­ject laws and con­sti­tu­tion­al arrange­ments that speak to our very be­ing, that it would be un­nat­u­ral­ly ad­verse for these de­ci­sions to be made by oth­ers else­where.”

James said Par­lia­ment will be asked to en­act a ref­er­en­dum frame­work, which he sug­gest­ed be ti­tled the To­ba­go Con­sul­ta­tive Ref­er­en­dum Act, to cod­i­fy who would be al­lowed to vote, who would be al­lowed to call a ref­er­en­dum, and the thresh­old for it to be held.

He said To­ba­go would de­cide whether a sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty is need­ed for suc­cess, giv­ing ex­am­ples such as the 2014 Scot­tish In­de­pen­dence Ref­er­en­dum and Britain’s ref­er­en­dum to ex­it the Eu­ro­pean Union in 2015.

“I per­son­al­ly look for­ward to a ref­er­en­dum that says To­ba­go should com­pete in sports as a sep­a­rate en­ti­ty to al­low our sports­men to fi­nal­ly see them­selves in (in­ter­na­tion­al spot­light for) To­ba­go. It’s not just about au­ton­o­my and so on, we need to bring this democ­ra­cy back to the peo­ple.”

James said the leg­isla­tive pro­ce­dure af­ter a ref­er­en­dum must be out­lined with a fixed time­line for Par­lia­ment to amend the Con­sti­tu­tion based on the out­come.

“This would keep the process struc­tured and pre­vent the ref­er­en­dum from be­ing sym­bol­ic on­ly,” he said.

Deputy Chief Sec­re­tary Dr Faith Breb­nor said the To­ba­go Peo­ple’s Par­ty (TPP) ad­min­is­tra­tion has the back­ing of the pub­lic in its au­ton­o­my jour­ney.

“When this ad­min­is­tra­tion won the 15 seats, we did so not for us to sim­ply man­age the sta­tus quo. To­ba­go did not give us a clean sweep so we could ne­go­ti­ate timid­ly. Col­leagues, man up and woman up...They do not ex­pect us to give them any half mea­sure dressed up as progress,” she said.

Breb­nor said To­bag­o­ni­ans are tired at be­ing told to take lit­tle and live long. She not­ed that many oil and gas fields are clos­er to To­ba­go than Trinidad, yet the is­land was not see­ing a com­par­a­tive eco­nom­ic ben­e­fit.

She said if To­ba­go were an in­de­pen­dent coun­try, many of the en­er­gy fields that be­long to T&T would be ex­clu­sive­ly owned by To­ba­go. She said pro­tect­ing To­ba­go’s fis­cal frame­work is cru­cial be­fore au­ton­o­my is de­fined.

“Let us not be fooled, we have been con­tribut­ing sig­nif­i­cant­ly to the purse of T&T,” she said.

Still, she said there is a gen­uine fear from To­bag­o­ni­ans about sep­a­ra­tion from Trinidad.

“That is not what we are talk­ing about, but we have to recog­nise these are gen­uine con­cerns with­in our cit­i­zens and those gen­uine con­cerns must be lis­tened to. We must come up with ways about al­lay­ing those fears. This year is go­ing to in­clude a lot of re-ed­u­ca­tion. It has to in­clude a lot of pep talks to To­bag­o­ni­ans who are fear­ful. We have to do it.”