SHOCK AND AWE hit St. Kitts and Nevis!
BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – Kittitians woke this morning (Friday July 8, 2011) thinking that the major news for the day would be the judgement of the Nevis High Court on the outcome of the Nevis election cases.
It was a wet morning and many looked suspiciously up at the skies, because warnings about possible flash flooding were still in the air.
The majority were not yet aware that just hours before, another young man had lost his life in Old Road.... another young man, the eighteenth victim for the year, had been gunned down and no one had been able to save him.
On hearing the news, a sick feeling began to form in their stomachs and spread upwards to bring on a disgusted feeling of nausea. They quickly tried to find out who the young man was, who his family was and whether he was an innocent victim or a member of a murderous gang.
Even before these questions could be answered came the news that there was yet another shooting up ‘de village’. And soon after that, within twelve hours of the last murder, another young man was pronounced dead at the local JNF hospital. Rumour stated that he was shot by an unmasked man or men, who carried out their mission calmly and within view of eyewitnesses.
The awe that enveloped those who heard of this second murder was plainly noticeable. Yet this was just about mid-morning and more was yet to come.
News then broke that there was yet another shooting in Market Street and an old woman had been caught in the crossfire.
The rain clouds continued to gather.
Amidst all of this came news of verdicts given in the Nevis Election cases. Only the five persons of the test case, who had been removed without explanation from the electoral list, had been re-instated by the Judge.
These were merely test cases for there was no time to process the other 236 persons who had also been removed from the list. They could not be re-instated. The judge, flown in for this emergency case, did not have any information about them and so could not rule.
And as shock descended on all those who felt they had been dis-enfranchised, it dawned on the electorate on both sides of The Narrows that winning an election could be more about manipulation than persuasion.
Why, they wondered, was only one Party in Nevis anxious to have the voters reinstated? Was the removal of voters from the list at this last minute really a free and fair exercise?
Back in St. Kitts, the talk shows were now on the air and the populace erupted. They were still in shock over the two murders that had occurred over the last twelve hours and the rage was evident in their voiced expressions:
“What is going on is unbelievable.. It’s horrible!”
“People scared to come out of they houses!”
“PM must set a momentum!”
“The criminals have no role models here!?
“Town should be shut down for half a day in protest!”
And while some claimed that the crime situation was not political, another commentator had different ideas. He said:
“You need a very strong political will, to get guns off the street. We do not have that here. It seem like some politicians (guess who?) ‘fraid to lose the criminals vote.”
Those in charge scuttled together Press conferences as part of their damage control strategies and to allay THE fears of their supporters. The Police on St. Kitts engaged in a little back-patting. They had apprehended two persons they told their suspicious listeners but they could give no information on the old lady caught in the crossfire, for whom everyone was praying.
Later, it was reported from other sources that she was in a stable condition but suffering from gunshot wounds to her legs,
In Nevis, the government told people that the election would go on despite those who sought to stall it and reminded everyone to go out to vote. The election was just 3 days away.
But the dark clouds continued to move across the skies and the persistent drizzle helped to harbour gloomy thoughts.
In Nevis, both sides of the electorate looked across at each other and speculated that this election would not be decided by those residing there but by the hundreds in the Diaspora who had been brought in to swell the numbers of voters on each side.
As night fell in St. Kitts and the rain eased, nationals hoped they would never experience another day like this, but for the hunters, the hunted and the aggrieved, the night would bring neither comfort nor sleep.
The events of the day may have done one good thing and that is, it may have strengthened the resolve of all that the present situation could not be allowed to continue and that individual and communal efforts would increase to bring an end to this frightening state of affairs.
