Sir Fred Phillips, former Governor of St. Kitts and Nevis from 1967-1968 wrote in his book entitled Caribbean life and Culture: A Citizen Reflects, that he told the Premier Robert Bradshaw that he could not remain as Governor of the State. He found it impossible not to question opinions on constitutional matters which in my professional judgment were patently wrong.
I also informed him I could no longer tolerate the consistent witch-hunting and repression meted out to the Opposition Party. &&I hoped that one day he would discover that I was right.
That was said in 1968. It is now 2005, 37 years after and history will show that Labour has relentlessly participated in a policy of witch-hunting and repressing the Opposition, trumping up charges where necessary, arresting them on the vaguest of causes and generally trying to convince the public that anyone opposing their decisions are enemies of the state and should be seen as criminals and traitors in their country of birth. Democracy was never meant to operate in this way.
The term witch-hunting is defined by one dictionary as, An investigation carried out ostensibly to uncover subversive activities but actually used to harass and undermine those with differing views and by another as searching out and harassing dissenters .
Who can deny that Labour has a total pre-occupation with this type of activity? It began in Bradshaws time and it continues to the present day. One has only to recall the time and expense ($30 million?) they devoted to the Commission of Inquiry after PAM left office when they tried to embarrass the PAM leaders who had sought to build this country. As in the case of the June 10 events, wild accusations and vague charges either could not be brought to court or could not be proven there.
But it did not stop there. Career civil servants who had served the country with devotion during both regimes were suddenly made to feel that they were criminals because they were not jumping on Labours bandwagon.
Three persons who had been teachers before becoming Permanent Secretaries and who had even taught the present Labour leaders with diligence were hustled out of their Permanent Secretary jobs and suddenly found themselves at the end of the firing line of the Labour mouthpiece. Where actual charges could not be found, they were referred to as potential saboteurs who could not be trusted to retain those positions. One Permanent Secretary challenged the accusations laid on her in Court and it took nine years before she was exonerated and compensated.
One only has to look at the insults, harassments and arrests that the Political Leader of PAM, Lindsay Grant, has to undergo to realize that this is still Labours legacy.
It is time for the witch-hunting to stop. We can never progress as a true Democracy while this far fetched and archaic interpretation of politics continue to hold sway. This cannot be the model of leadership we wish our youth to emulate. It is time to cut this out and lead democratically by example.
