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Trinidad & Tobago: “Radio Raid” Reactions

The fallout over the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister's visit to a radio station to complain about critical comments made against him during a newscast appears to have only just begun. Local mainstream media continue to apply pressure, although in typical Trinbagonian fashion, some of the coverage is peppered with humour - a task made easier thanks to the untimely explosion of a light bulb in Parliament during a debate on the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Order:

In a subtle reference about Manning’s visit to Radio 94.1 FM on October 25, Panday (the Leader of the Opposition) informed the Prime Minister he would have no choice but to endure long lines at gas stations if he was an ordinary citizen who owned a car which was fuelled by CNG.

But bloggers see nothing humourous about what many of them consider to be the Prime Minister's attempts to muzzle free speech, although Caribbean Free Radio did have a chuckle or two about an anonymous email message she received that alluded to the whole controversy:

Did the sender of this message so desperately need to vent his/her feelings about Prime Minister Patrick Manning’s visit to radio station 94.1 FM that any Trinidad and Tobago-identified entity with the word “radio” in its name sufficed as a target? Or could it be that he/she thinks CFR is a radio station? Or perhaps a warning that I should expect a visit from the PM some time soon?

Then she gets serious:

I agree that the day a Prime Minister pays a visit to a media company that results–either directly or indirectly–in two people being suspended from their jobs, is a sombre day indeed for those who work in what has come to be known as the mainstream media. And when that same Prime Minister declares, in a post-Cabinet news conference, that he was well within his rights to visit the radio station, denies any connection between his visit to the station and the suspension of the employees, announces his intention to sue the TNT Mirror for their report on the incident, asserts his right to “sue any media house whose reporting aggrieves him” and to “visit any offending media house ‘as the spirit moves [him]‘”, who can blame the citizens of the country for feeling that freedom of expression–indeed, democracy–in Trinidad and Tobago is under serious threat?

Perhaps even more offensive than his threats are Mr. Manning’s efforts to shroud the clearly personal reasons for his beef with the media in the sheep’s clothing of officialdom. “Too many of the commentators either in the newspapers or on the radio do not respect our institutions,” he is reported as saying. “It is a question of being disrespectful to institutions and authority and pursuing a course of action that can cause the image of these institutions and individuals to be tarnished in the minds of those in whose interest they are set up to serve. And therefore they can become completely ineffective.”

Which I take to mean that our “institutions” are so feeble as to be rendered ineffective by the fact that the public thinks they’re not doing their job. And of course the reason the public thinks this they’re not doing their job is solely because the media tells them so, not because members of the public have dealings with these institutions and draw conclusions themselves. In addition to the impending suspension of our right to freedom of expression, should I also be bracing myself for the announcement that thoughtcrime has been added to the list of criminal offenses? Now there’s something that would aggrieve me.

KnowProSE.com exercises his rights by penning an open letter to the Prime Minister:

What, exactly, was the unprofessional behaviour that prompted your visit to the radio station? I understand that you have rights, but without such information there is an open question as to what the people were suspended for. Without that information, it appears to be censorship of the media - something which can only be alleged, but which tarnishes the reputation of your person, and more importantly, the Institution which your person is associated with. So I ask you, openly, to tell the nation why these people required your personal attention and presence.

Jumbie's Watch attempts to answer the question by linking to the transcript of what was said by the radio station announcers. He then puts in his two cents' worth:

Personally, the Grumpy Old Man in me feels that while a newscast should be more professional and less personal, and that this is in poor taste, I can't see the ‘insult' to Pa-trick. I've actually had more insulting opinions aired here on this blog.

KnowProSE.com suggests that the Prime Minister is:

…probably too busy driving around, blazing his way through traffic with his security detail, to get up on the World Wide Web and read up what's going on. And maybe that's part of his problem - a lack of connectivity, in a very figurative and perhaps more literal sense.

Nicholas Laughlin attempts to address that lack of connectivity in this post about the issue:

Many citizens would say the institutions and individuals of the Manning government are already “completely non-effective” at solving the real and urgent problems facing the country. Forget the murder rate, the babies dying in hospitals, the near-permanent gridlock of the country's transport infrastructure, the power outages and water lock-offs, the widespread belief in massive corruption and fraud at high levels of government, the secret new constitution now being drafted that will consolidate executive power, etc etc etc etc. What we really need to worry about, Mr. Manning seems to believe–and he even seems hurt that we don't agree–is a free press.

Mr. Manning's radio station raid is yet one more reminder–as if, Lord, we needed another–that in Trinidad and Tobago democracy is not a practice but a concept, and a concept that we still, forty-six years after independence, do not really understand, much less believe in. In a representative democracy–the form of government we claim–the people's representatives, our members of Parliament, and the prime minister chosen from among them, have the duty of acting in the people's interest. Instead–with the help of a constitution which already concentrates too much power in the executive's hands, a system of tribal politics that is destructive of clear thought, and a succession of politicians enamoured of the trappings of power–we are lorded over by an administration which seems to believe it is the people's duty to act in the government's interest.

Mr. Manning has demonstrated over and again his disdain for criticism–however useful, however well meant–whether it comes from the media, the public at large, or even from within his own party. The 94.1 incident is perhaps not even the most serious example we've witnessed of late. I have no doubt that the Trinidad and Tobago media, backed up by their regional colleagues, will face down Mr. Manning's threats of personal and legal action against journalists by whom he feels “aggrieved”. But who among us is facing up to the bigger and deeper crisis, the bankruptcy of “democracy” as a meaningful idea and principle and practice in twenty-first-century Trinidad and Tobago?

Because we are all responsible.

Are we to take all this to mean that the local media is above reproach? KnowProSE.com doesn't think so:

Yes, the media can do better. And I don't think that there's anyone in the media who would disagree, though defining what ‘better' is can be a troublesome thing. The actions of Patrick Manning in the office of Prime Minister do not mean that media in Trinidad and Tobago shouldn't have some introspection. In fact, it should accelerate that introspection. Even so, the media has to protect itself and do so solidly - not armed with rhetoric and ridicule. It shouldn't treat the Prime Minister in the same way that he, apparently, wishes to treat the media.

The sad truth of the matter is that the government - including the Opposition, so don't get excited - has been so poor at informing the media and, by extension, the people of Trinidad and Tobago that one has to wonder what is really going on. The government does a stunningly poor job of informing media and the citizenry.

The media can do a better job. The government has to do a better job. Shoveling laissez merde at the media gets everyone where we are today.

And where we are today is that the Media Association of Trinidad and Tobago has spoken out against the Prime Minister's actions (blogger Media Watch publishes MATT's response to the PM's statements in his fifth post about the controversy) and bloggers continue to voice their disgust. Attillah Springer writes a poignant post entitled No, We Can't that makes the chasm between local politics and the new politics that Barack Obama has brought to America appear even wider:

No we can’t. We can’t speak out. We can’t have opinions.

No we can’t. We can’t go on air and question our leaders. We must behave. We must tow the line. We must be loyal subjects or be labelled as traitors.

No we can’t be outspoken. We can’t be satirists or investigators or analysts. We must take nice pictures of ministers. We can’t have a functional media because that would mean there would be too many unanswered questions.

No we can’t.

We can’t be anything else but suspicious of each other. We can’t speak our truths without first wondering and agonising about who will be antagonised. We can’t move on from this stagnant stink of self-censorship. How it go look if you say that? They go come for you. Legal or illegal. Accident or accidentally on purpose.

No we can’t.

We can’t possibly think that change is ever going to come to this place of ignorant, quick to anger, thin-skinned leaders.

We can’t ever get out of this morass of idiocy.

We can’t get up off our backsides and select someone younger and more thoughtful, whose vision is not of his own reflection.

We must not ever even suspect that there is another way. For what would be left of our leaders if they were to realise one day that we didn’t need them to be our thought police? What would they be without their control and their veiled threats but frightened old men who want to hold on to their power like they want to hold on to their thinning hair and even thinner grasp of logic and/or reality?

Unsurprisingly, in the face of such widespread criticism, The Secret Blog of Patrick Manning attempts to have the last word:

Except for the fact that they served pone again for tea, this afternoon’s session of parliament was mostly unbearable, thanks mainly to Imbert, who approached me during one of the breaks to inform me that people have started calling me “Joe Petit Quart” (the Trinidadian equivalent of Joe Six-pack) behind my back. This due to my insistence that I am just a regular fella with the same right to visit radio stations as any citizen. I fail to understand why people are finding this idea so hard to grasp.

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DR Congo: Fighting Continues

Elia Varela Serra · 16:49, November 10th, 2008 · Sub-Saharan Africa

lingua → sr · fr · de · es · it

As the world celebrates Barack Obama's victory as the next president of the United States, AfroSpear reminds us that the conflict in the province of North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo hasn't stopped:

In this era where a man of African descent has secured the throne of the most powerful nation of the world, a tragedy of enormous proportions continues to be played out in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is indeed easier to sell a “message of hope” in political change to cure what ails us… than to “commit to action” so as to change a situation of recurring despair and destruction.

At the Untold Stories blog from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, Michael Kavanagh writes from Goma:

There are now more than one million people who have fled their homes in North Kivu, and very few are receiving any humanitarian aid. Before last week's fighting, most were getting by through the generosity of neighbors who hosted the displaced in their homes and yards and farms. Now those host families are displaced, too. People are fleeing into forests, to churches, to schools […]

Villagers of Kibati fleeing towards Goma after fighting in the area. Photo by Julien Harneis

Last Friday, November 7th, regional African leaders meeting at a United Nations-backed summit in Nairobi called for an immediate ceasefire in eastern DRC, and the establishment of a humanitarian corridor so that the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the recent crisis can get the assistance they need. The summit, hosted by the African Union (AU), brought together DRC President Joseph Kabila and President Paul Kagame of Rwanda, which borders North Kivu, as well as the leaders of Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi and South Africa.

Already on October 29th a ceasefire was announced unilaterally by the CNDP, the rebel force led by Laurent Nkunda. However, even as the summit was taking place, there were reports of heavy clashes between FARDC (the Congolese army) and CNDP in a number of rural areas including Kibati, about 9km north of Goma, leading to further displacements. Dawn Hurley, an American Expat in Goma, comments on the situation:

Nkunda claims that he has not broken his self-proclaimed cease-fire and that he has merely fought off attacks from the government. But this distinction is hard to understand at best. Nkunda's rebels have taken two towns in the North, forcing the population to flee further. They have also retaken the town of Kiwanja. The town of Kiwanja was under Nkunda's control until Tuesday when another rebel group allied with the government retook the town in a surprising show of power. This lead to bitter fighting between the two groups, and eventually Nkunda's rebels reclaimed the town. However there are wide spread reports that many civilians were killed by Nkunda's forces as they reclaimed the town, apparently in a retaliatory fashion.

Meanwhile, a preliminary fact-finding mission from MONUC visited Kiwanja, north of the town of Rutshuru, after receiving reports that several civilians were killed there during the fighting including a Congolese journalist, Alfred Nzonzo Bitwahiki who worked for the community radio Ushikira (Racou). Colette Braeckman, a Belgian journalist and author of several books on Central Africa, wonders:

Des civils massacrés pratiquement sous les yeux de Casques bleus impuissants ou indifférents: Kiwanja sera-t-il un Srebrenica congolais ?

Civilians being massacred practically under the blue helmets' eyes, helpless or indifferent to it: is Kiwanja going to be the Congolese Srebrenica?

In order to document what is happening right now on the ground, on Friday the Ushahidi has deployed its software to the DRC after successfully using it during January's post-electoral violence in Kenya and in May during the xenophobic attacks on immigrants in South Africa. Ushahidi, that means “witness” in Swahili, is a tool that allowes anyone to submit crisis information through text messaging using a mobile phone, email or web form, and to visualize it on a map or timeline. The phone number to send the SMS reports to is +243992592111 and the site to view the reports is http://DRC.ushahidi.com.

One of the incident reports that can already be found on the DRC Ushahidi page refers to the killing of a local journalist in the Kiwanja area:

One of our facilitators for community radio (Ushirika) was killed in Rutshuru.

The Kiwanja Nehemiah Committee president has fled, the parish is more insecure.

We have had some contact with Kibirizi, but phone contact there is difficult. I'm in permanent contact with the Nehemiah Committee in Kiwanja and Rutshuru. Our superviser has been visited three times in a row by uniformed men in his house in Kiwanja.

For more reports from the ground, see this blog post by aid workers from the International Rescue Committee in North Kivu, or this diary of another aid worker in the area at the Alertnet blog.

A few days ago, the BBC's Africa Have your say asked its audience “Why can't DRC keep the peace?”. Here's a small selection of the answers given by Congolese readers:

Joseph, from Goma:

The whole problem stems from the DRC government in the 1990's not fulfilling their promise to hunt down the killers during the Rwandan Genocide. They promised Rwanda they would hunt down and kill those Hutu's who fled into Congo that took part in the genocide and they never did. Rwanda and the rebels were forced to take matters into their own hands because of the poor leadership in Congo which backtracked on their promise. I love my country but our leadership is hopeless.

Davis Tara, from Kinshasa:

DRC can have peace only when her leaders develops political will to end war. It seems kabila is enjoying to have insecurity in that part of his country so as to scare off polical opponents.

Dr Paul Kabasele, a Congolese in London:

The international community has been risponsible for the Hutus crossing the borders after the genocide, why shouldn't the same community sort out this mess?

Michelle F. of the Stop Genocide blog also has her say on how to keep the peace in the DRC:

If some degree of security can be established in the Eastern DRC, it will not be sustained without serious reforms to the Congolese military. The FARDC, beyond being under-resourced and generally incompetent, is responsible for some of the worst abuses committed against Congolese civilians, including enthusiastic participation in the brutal epidemic of rape that has become a hallmark of the conflict.

Speaking of the much-publicised problem of rape in Congo, Michael Kavanagh of the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting things that journalists and activists write about it “a lot more than they write about the war”. And he adds:

The problem with much of the reporting on sexual violence in Congo - my own included, sometimes - is that it lacks context, often because the context is so complicated that journalists and editors decide to gloss over it.

But it needs to be said over and over: rape in Congo is a direct result of the conflict. Rape cases skyrocket after fighting and near frontlines; when fighting dies down so do the number of rapes. Rape is an epidemic born from violence, not an endemic part of Congolese society. The only way to “Stop Rape” is to end the war. It can only happen in that order.

Dawn Hurley shares this anecdote:

As I was walking around Goma I talked with young one man, who perhaps best summarized the mood of Goma. I asked if he was scared.

He replied “Fear is a luxury for the rich.” If you are poor, what does it matter if you are afraid? There is nothing you can do about it. You can't run away, you can't change anything. You just keep on living. What is the point of being afraid?”

For a comprehensive list of background briefings and policy recommendations on the DRC, as well as ideas for action, see the Individual Responsibility to Protect blog.

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Haiti: School Collapses

Janine Mendes-Franco · 15:34 · Americas

lingua → es · bn · it · fr

The fact that Haiti didn't need another tragedy didn't stop one from striking. This time, it was a school collapse in Pétionville, which left scores of children dead and countless others injured. Haitian bloggers were quick to offer online empathy and support.

Haiti Innovation said:

Some emergencies can be predicted. Every hurricane season, we can anticipate that Haiti will likely be hit with tropical storms. Others such as the collapse of a school in Petionville yesterday are unexpected tragedies. The community was, as is usually the case, the first to respond. They tried to remove as much of the rubble as possible but were hampered by a lack of heavy equipment.

Livesay Haiti Weblog confirmed that children were trapped in the rubble and urged people to “please pray for all involved”, as did Pwoje Espwa, who noted that rescue efforts were being hampered “by the area shanty towns surrounding the school and a steep ravine and the lack of any organized rescue infrastructure in country.”

Pwoje Espwa went on to write another post, this one dedicated to the memory of Mariella Delisca, one of the victims:

She was nineteen and a good friend of Nick Kocmich (Nico) who worked with us a couple of years ago. Nick is now in Port-au-Prince in charge of the Norwich House, a ministry of the Diocese of Norwich, Connecticut. Mariella was part of the Norwich family and will be sorely missed. Our prayers are for her family, her friends and for all those who have lost loved ones in that terrible accident that we now hear has taken 82 lives.

The Blesh Family, who lives down the hill from the school, admitted that the situation was “terrible”, while RHFH Rescue Center had a friend close by who “was able to go see what was happening”:

He said there was a class with 47 students and 45 were killed. He saw several dead bodies being taken out of the actual building. They were putting then into the back of pickup truck and driving them away like that. We have heard today on the radio that the death toll is around 80. There were at least 500 students in the school.

Meanwhile, The Haitian Blogger was saddened that the United Nations has been allocating money towards “stabilization” rather than infrastructure:

My birthplace is Petion-Ville, Haiti. It is a suburb of the capital of Haiti, Port-Au-Prince. At a school named “La Promesse” (the promise) in Petion-Ville a three story school building collapsed yesterday at mid-morning. The whole building crumbled. The concrete fell on the approximately 500-700 children from kindergarten to high school attending the school on Friday.

At least 50 are dead. At this time Haitians are digging with their bare hands and working through the night to pull out the hundreds that remain trapped under the rubble.

When the UN occupied Haiti, the Haitian president Rene Preval asked for more tractors and bulldozers for building Haiti's infrastructure, not more tanks and guns. There are now 9,000 UN troops in Haiti. The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti's (MINUSTAH) approved budget (1 July 2008 - 30 June 2009): is $601.58 million (See Haiti MINUSTAH Facts and Figures)

That's $50.13 million per month, $1.64 million PER DAY.

Yesterday, if Haiti had more bulldozers, more children would have been rescued.

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Cuba: Hurricane Paloma

Janine Mendes-Franco · 14:58 · Americas

In the latest installment of the chronicles of the 2008 hurricane season, Hurricane Paloma struck Cuba, destroying hundreds of homes in the process and compounding the damage and economic losses the island experienced two short months ago after Hurricane Ike. Bloggers from both Cuba and the diaspora were monitoring the storm's progress.

Babalu Blog linked to mainstream media reports that suggested the devastation was not on the scale of Gustav and Ike, but he noted:

It's still early and no doubt that areas along the southern coast of Camaguey and Las Tunas provinces got hammered last night. Let's hope and pray that Cubans won't go through the misery that they've already had to endure the past 2 months.

Fellow diaspora blogger Uncommon Sense echoed his concern:

This has been an especially hard year for Cuba, as Paloma is the third major hurricane to strike the island. Rebuilding after the previous storms, Gustav and Ike, is far from complete, and Paloma will undoubtedly add to the ever-present suffering in Cuba caused by almost 50 years of dictatorship.

In a follow-up post, Uncommon Sense wrote about the Cuban government's “preemptive rejection of any post-Paloma assistance from the United States”, a move that dashed The Cuban's Triangle's hopes for aid to get through to the people who most need it:

Cuba similarly rejected U.S. help after hurricanes Gustav and Ike ravaged the island this year, deciding it was better to make a diplomatic/political point against the United States and the embargo than to accept all the help that was offered in response to the tragedies. Perhaps the American government's moral standing was compromised because it refused to lift limits on how much help Cuban Americans could send to family members on the island — the limits are immoral, no matter the weather. But there was never any doubt that the American offers of help to Havana were sincere and somewhat extraordinary.

Maybe the embargo should be debated, especially with a new president soon to take office in the United States. And if the dictatorship releases political prisoners and holds free elections, the embargo should be scrapped.

On the island itself, Havana Times reported that “Cuba is once again in the eye of the storm”, and did a good job of posting regular updates.

Circles Robinson said that the island was in the midst of “that strange, eerie time just before a hurricane strikes”:

It’s been one heck of hurricane season. If Hurricane Paloma crosses the island as expected, it will be the third major storm to hit Cuba this year.

Instead of trying to concentrate on the prospects posed by the soon-to-be Obama administration in Washington, Cuba must once again put all its priority on Civil Defense.

In a post that Circles wrote for Havana Times, he noted that “it was dark when Hurricane Paloma struck Cuban soil at 7:27 p.m. on Saturday and the damage being caused by its winds and rain continues on into the wee hours”:

The latest of three major hurricanes hitting Cuba this season was dubbed Paloma (the dove) but entered the island like a fierce hawk on the south coast of Camaguey province near the town of Santa Cruz del Sur.

In his personal blog, he wrote bout the damage assessment that was to follow and at Havana Times, he posted information about damage and recovery efforts, adding:

The hurricane season official ends on November 30th and nobody in Cuba will be sad to say goodbye.

And Generation Y was of the opinion that Paloma only deepened the devastation that was already there:

Today the sarcasm of the name is more cruel. Paloma will flutter down over a wounded Island, sinking its beak into places that still show the wounds left by hurricanes in August and September. It has the bare neck of the vultures, as common as they are absurd, and the blackness of its feathers does not bode well.

As for nature, it is better not to try to understand her. She has both chaos and logic. At the moment she has touched us with her confusion and madness. Paloma will pass, leaving the Island in the same place, the destruction a little deeper and the dreams much farther off.

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Jerusalem: Armenian, Greek Monks Brawl

Onnik Krikorian · 09:24, November 10th, 2008 · Middle East & North Africa , Western Europe

lingua → fr · bn · it

Friction between various religious denominations is not new, but an incident that occurred between Armenian and Greek monks at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem has drawn the attention of many bloggers to such rivalry. Ben Witherington says that such behavior is a disgrace.

There are few places that better demonstrate both the diversity and the divided character of Christianity than the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. So divided are we, that in order for anything to go on in that Church which likely stands over the spot where Jesus was crucified, the keys to the front door have been held by a Muslim family for centuries, because of course the Christians who have staked out turf in this building couldn't decide who should have the keys! […]

[…]

Notice that Christians couldn't settle matters themselves so the Israeli riot police had to come in and break things up— a total disgrace. I wish I could say that real Christians don't behave this way, but since I have seen it with my own eyes in my own church, sadly I am unable to say this. It is too easy to write this off as non-born again folks behaving badly.

[…]

Father forgive us, for we know not what we do, nor how terrible our witness to a watching world is.

Opinion of a Minion is also amazed.

The video of it is almost beyond belief. It looks like rival football fans having a tussle but it’s the monks fighting over who gets to be in the church. If Armenians are using it for this Feast, the Greeks have to stay out of it. But the Greeks wanted to keep a guardian in the building, specifically in the area considered to be the tomb of Jesus. Armenians had a bit of a problem with that, and whammo slammo.

It’s worse than a divorce. […]

Contemporary Orthodoxy is particularly upset.

The sort of behavior exhibited by our angelic order is quite possibly the most disgusting display of lack of self control possible. It also seems to indicate a lack of maturity. Our Christian charity requires that we are at the very least tolerant of other denominations. […] A more appropriate way to take care of the situation would be to wait until they are finished and then appeal to the higher authorities as to what would be a more acceptable course of action in the future.

Chaldean Thoughts is also distressed by the brawl.

It's very sad for this to happen at one of the holiest places of Christianity. It's worse to know monks started this brawl.

Therion posts photographs of the fight and uses the occasion to attack Christianity.

Jesus is alleged to have taught his followers to “turn the other cheek” when provoked. But when it comes to representatives of his earthly church - fugetabout it!

[…]

This brawl is by no means an isolated occurrence. Six Christian sects share control of the ancient church. They frequently hurl abuse and engage in punch-ups that get so out-of-hand the Israeli police are forced to intervene.

What could be more ironical than Christians beating each other up on the alleged burial site of the ‘Prince of Peace.' Just one more example of Christian hypocrisy, that gives the lie to everything they claim to stand for.

Friggin Loon is not surprised at all.