PNM vows its own Independence celebrations if Govt cancels parade again

AKASH SAMA­ROO

Lead Ed­i­tor – News­gath­er­ing

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les says the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) is pre­pared to or­gan­ise its own In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions if Gov­ern­ment can­cels the na­tion­al In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade for a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive year, ar­gu­ing that the an­nu­al event is too im­por­tant to the coun­try's his­to­ry and iden­ti­ty to be aban­doned.

Speak­ing at a PNM pub­lic meet­ing in Laven­tille on Thurs­day night, Beck­les ex­pressed scep­ti­cism that the Au­gust 31 pa­rade would pro­ceed this year, not­ing that prepa­ra­tions nor­mal­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the event ap­pear ab­sent.

"This is the sec­ond year. If you go to the Sa­van­nah, you will see that the North Stand is still up. They have not been prac­tis­ing for any pa­rade," Beck­les told sup­port­ers.

She sug­gest­ed that cit­i­zens should pre­pare for the pos­si­bil­i­ty that Gov­ern­ment may once again cite se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns as a rea­son for can­celling the event.

"Don't sur­prise your­self if you're go­ing to hear all kinds of things, all kinds of ex­cus­es they're go­ing to give you so that there will not be a pa­rade," she said.

Beck­les ar­gued that In­de­pen­dence cel­e­bra­tions tran­scend par­ty pol­i­tics and form part of the na­tion's shared her­itage.

"Er­ic Williams made sure that we be­came an in­de­pen­dent coun­try. And they can­not take that away from us," she said.

She added that even if the of­fi­cial pa­rade does not take place, the PNM in­tends to en­sure the oc­ca­sion is com­mem­o­rat­ed.

"We will find ways and means to cel­e­brate our in­de­pen­dence," Beck­les de­clared.

Her com­ments were re­in­forced by Op­po­si­tion MP Stu­art Young, who ques­tioned Gov­ern­ment's in­ten­tions de­spite fund­ing be­ing ear­marked for In­de­pen­dence Day ac­tiv­i­ties in the re­cent­ly ap­proved mid-year bud­get pack­age.

Young not­ed that ap­prox­i­mate­ly $2.5 mil­lion had been al­lo­cat­ed for In­de­pen­dence Day cel­e­bra­tions in the $2.9 bil­lion sup­ple­men­tary ap­pro­pri­a­tion ap­proved by Par­lia­ment, but said he re­mained wary that the event could still be scrapped.

"They can­cel our In­de­pen­dence pa­rade, and when I say our, not PNM you know, ours as Trinidad and To­ba­go In­de­pen­dence pa­rade, for se­cu­ri­ty rea­sons," Young said.

Re­fer­ring to the al­lo­ca­tion con­tained in the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee process, Young ques­tioned whether Gov­ern­ment gen­uine­ly in­tend­ed to pro­ceed with the event.

"They put in­to the Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee two and a half mil­lion dol­lars for In­de­pen­dence Day," he said.

Young ac­cused Gov­ern­ment of fail­ing to pro­vide con­vinc­ing jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for ex­tend­ing the State of Emer­gency and sug­gest­ed that the con­tin­u­a­tion of emer­gency mea­sures could ul­ti­mate­ly be used to jus­ti­fy can­celling the pa­rade.

"Not a sin­gle rea­son jus­ti­fy­ing the State of Emer­gency con­tin­u­ing past then," he told sup­port­ers.

The for­mer min­is­ter said he was will­ing to pub­licly chal­lenge Gov­ern­ment on the is­sue, ar­gu­ing that the al­lo­ca­tion of funds should re­sult in a na­tion­al cel­e­bra­tion tak­ing place.

"Let me take a bet now what hap­pened with In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade and if we force them to have it by us tak­ing the bet, good, be­cause that is an im­por­tant part of Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­bra­tions," Young said.

He added that if cel­e­bra­tions pro­ceed, all cit­i­zens should feel wel­come to par­tic­i­pate.

"We will look for­ward to wel­com­ing all cit­i­zens be­cause we don't dis­crim­i­nate in the PNM to come down to the Sa­van­nah for In­de­pen­dence Day," Young said.

Last year, Gov­ern­ment can­celled the tra­di­tion­al In­de­pen­dence Day pa­rade cit­ing se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns, a move that drew crit­i­cism from sec­tions of the pub­lic and Op­po­si­tion politi­cians.

Gov­ern­ment has not in­di­cat­ed whether this year's pa­rade will pro­ceed.

But for the PNM leader, the is­sue is about more than a pa­rade.

"That is an im­por­tant part of Trinidad and To­ba­go cel­e­bra­tions," she said, in­sist­ing that the coun­try's In­de­pen­dence an­niver­sary should be marked re­gard­less of any de­ci­sion tak­en by Gov­ern­ment.