BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – CHURCH STREET was last night (July 8) transformed into a sea of yellow, as members and supporters of the People’s Action Movement (PAM) staged a peaceful protest in front of Government Headquarters.
Led by Lindsay Grant, an estimated crowd of over 250 people marched from the Party’s Constituency Two Office, where a political meeting was earlier held, along Central Street and converged on the stairway of and in front of Government Headquarters.
Shortly after their arrival at Government Headquarters, singing “We shall overcome” and “When PAM goes marching in” as well as chanting “We want change” and “De Injunction…’e ah wuk”, members of the Strike Force, who were quickly reinforced by police officers dressed in riot gear and armed, pushed Grant off the stairway and formed a human barrier at the entrance of the building.
Grant was at the time addressing his supporters and he did not offer any resistance after being forcibly removed from the stairway. However, during one stage of the protest, some members of the crowd became agitated but were quickly calmed after being spoken to by Grant and other Constituency Representatives of the party.
In response to the reason for the protest march, Grant said, “Tonight, the people are showing the Denzil Douglas Labour Administration that their democracy will not be trampled upon. What happened here today in Parliament is a travesty of justice, a travesty of our democracy and a trampling upon the rights of everything; every single citizen of this country.”
Grant is of the view that Dr. Douglas has treated the court’s order with disdain.
“Denzil Douglas cannot believe that he can flaunt the court’s jurisdiction! An injunction was granted indicating the Report ought not to be considered. But what he’s done is that he has violated the law of the land and that is why we have crime as it is today. The young people who are looking for leadership are looking towards our leaders as role models, but look at the Prime Minister, you hear him say that he is ’10 man in one’. He said that he incite already, he bad since he born, he can cause a revolution, and then now flaunting the court’s law. What are the young people to say?”
Grant stressed that a fish stinks from the head, “so all we can expect from this country is chaos and a chaotic country, because the youths of today have nothing to look up to”.
Asked what he intends to do in order to appease the situation, Grant said, “You can see what we are doing already. We are challenging what Douglas has done by every legal means possible. We are peaceful! We came here tonight in a peaceful symbolic show that we are concerned about the freedom and democracy in this country.
“If we allow this to transpire to its finality, there will be no justice in this country because today it’s the People’s Action Movement and tomorrow it is your freedom that is going to be trampled upon. But that is neither here nor there for me. Tonight is the people’s night, and if it’s going to take us every single night, every single night from now we will be down here on these steps.”
Grant ended the brief interview by stating that the PAM would continue its protest, because its leaders are not fighting for their democracy but the democracy of the future of the Federation and the children yet unborn.
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