Augustine, PM to discuss path to Tobago self-rule

Stephon Nicholas

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is set to meet Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar to­mor­row to dis­cuss To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my.

Speak­ing at a ple­nary sit­ting in Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said the meet­ing aims to fi­nalise a time­line for the pas­sage of self-gov­er­nance leg­is­la­tion.

His ad­dress was briefly in­ter­rupt­ed by a ring­ing cell­phone in the As­sem­bly Leg­is­la­ture, which he used to call on par­lia­men­tar­i­ans to re­spect and sup­port To­ba­go’s wish­es.

“It’s be­cause of this strik­ing irony, and how long we have been wait­ing since this is­land was forced in­to an arranged mar­riage with Trinidad, that we see To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my as ur­gent. When I meet with the Prime Min­is­ter on Fri­day evening, it will be to es­tab­lish a time­line that I will then re­port back to To­ba­go,” Au­gus­tine said.

He as­sured that To­bag­o­ni­ans would soon see “some mea­sur­able ac­tions to achieve this To­ba­go au­ton­o­my.”

Al­though he did not men­tion names, Au­gus­tine ac­cused the for­mer PNM gov­ern­ment of de­lib­er­ate­ly keep­ing To­ba­go stag­nant. “One of the things I’ve re­alised is that peo­ple who are de­scen­dants of op­pres­sion of­ten be­come op­pres­sors. When they yearned for in­de­pen­dence from Eu­rope, those who led the move­ment didn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly seek free­dom for all; they sim­ply want­ed to re­place the white mas­ters and be­come rulers them­selves,” he said.

Prais­ing the cur­rent Cen­tral Gov­ern­ment for its will­ing­ness to push through re­forms, Au­gus­tine ex­pressed op­ti­mism about to­mor­row’s meet­ing.

The Par­latu­vi­er/L’Anse Four­mi/Spey­side rep­re­sen­ta­tive not­ed that last month he was in­vit­ed by Per­sad-Bisses­sar to at­tend the Cari­com Heads of Gov­ern­ment meet­ing in St Kitts and Nevis, where he spoke with cur­rent and for­mer politi­cians to study their au­ton­o­my laws and jour­neys to­wards self-gov­er­nance.

Last month, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) passed a mo­tion ini­ti­at­ing a con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum process. Au­gus­tine said a con­stituent as­sem­bly com­pris­ing var­i­ous stake­hold­ers would be formed to draft leg­is­la­tion on To­ba­go’s au­ton­o­my.

Megan Mor­ri­son, Sec­re­tary in the Of­fice of the Chief Sec­re­tary, said Au­gus­tine’s meet­ing with the Prime Min­is­ter will dic­tate the next steps, but con­firmed that the con­sul­ta­tive ref­er­en­dum process will be launched soon.