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   Students will be relieved of being accommodated in hazardous facilities which presently predisposes them to ill-health,” said Saint Lucia’s Prime Minister Stephenson King, during his 2009/2010 budget presentation under the heading “Education.” The PM was at the time, speaking about the “Basic Education Enhancement Project,” which he said would “contribute to breaking the cycle of inter-generational poverty.”
For all the so called “strides” made in education here and the pontification time and time again of Sir Arthur Lewis’ quotes about education being the way out of poverty, the annual allocation for education remains a paltry sum. In fact, the system itself has not developed sufficiently and effectively since independence, to bridge the gap between the haves and have nots. And while Christians believe that all men are created equally, the same cannot be said for our schools. While some parents too, are fooled into believing some educators when they say “don’t worry it is not the school it is the child, if they want to learn they will learn,” others have come to realize that some schools are doomed to fail when they do not get adequate support, facilities and even teachers, from a system which continues to marginalize them.
Having said all of this, I was hardly surprised at the reaction to my article “The Forgotten Ones” which used the “George Charles Secondary School” as a microcosm of what exists in our present education system. “Hardly surprised,” not so much with regards to the overwhelmingly positive feedback it received on our website and elsewhere, but by the knee-jerk reaction by some teachers and others at the Ministry of Education. Oh, by the way my recorder still has plenty of space for the counter arguments some have proposed. Call me! The George Charles School has been around now for 20 years, meaning that they have had ten year doses of two administrations and nothing much has changed. So this can never be about anything partisan, but about a rotten system which continues to fail our children.
And so those with veiled and coloured ambitions would obviously fail to see the merits of the article and maybe too, they are the same ones turning a blind eye on the hundreds of children doomed by poverty, attending school on empty stomachs each day and walking into dilapidated classes which exposes them to hazards and the “ill- health conditions” that the PM spoke of.
In last year’s budget presentation the PM also spoke of the implementation of a project to provide all Grade 6 students (common entrance students) with a computer. Similar sentiments were expressed this Thursday by King (during a ceremony for the final phase of a Primary School Computer program—more on that next week). He spoke about ongoing negotiations to equip every student with a computer, without committing to a specific time frame. As noble, ideal and well intentioned this is, it will mean nothing when we still have difficulties getting our children (in certain parts on the island) to and from school and when we still have hungry kids on our school benches. It is said that empty vessels make the most noise and maybe the noise and violence we hear, stems from hungry belly rumblings which are deafening even to a point where we ignore them.
Last week I spoke with Dr Didacus Jules, the former PS in the last administration and now the chief registrar with the Barbados based CXC. We discussed a range of issues on education, but more specifically Universal Secondary Education and the inequalities existing within the school system here.
I first asked Dr Jules about the timing of the introduction of Universal Secondary Education (USE) and the thinking behind the initiative five years ago.
“USE had been on the agenda of most Caribbean States for at least 10 years preceding St Lucia’s own movement in that direction,” Dr Jules told the STAR. “In the 21st Century, the experience of countries like Barbados shows that universal secondary education was the educational requirement for successful transition to a service economy. It is now felt that universal tertiary education is the necessity for successful insertion into the information economy. It was recognized that the competitiveness of Saint Lucia’s human resources would be constrained if we did not provide this upgrading.”
“Were we ready for it?” I then asked. His response: “I do not buy this argument about “being ready for it. The education deficit is a major contributor to inequality among people as well as among nations. The most educated societies are the ones which now have the competitive edge in the global arena. It is interesting also that this argument about “readiness” has historically been used by the power brokers who do not want the status quo to change—the ruling elites in the early 19th Century argued that the Caribbean masses were not ready for democracy because they were too uneducated; they also argued against universal primary education saying that to provide this level of education to everyone was wasteful because the society did not need so many people at that level!”
The plan for Universal Secondary Education here, Jules says, was not just about the construction of new schools but involved paying attention to the curriculum, improving training of teachers, strengthening the management of schools, and taking a range of policy measures which would ensure greater success. World Bank funding for example went to a program to provide a specially crafted diploma program for all principals, deputy principals and education officers in St Lucia.
“Was the plan ever to have children who were at the bottom of the Common Entrance heap all go to one or a few schools?” I asked Jules next. “No, on the contrary, the plan was to over a period of at least a decade ensure that all schools were raised to a higher standard of provision and performance,” Jules said. “After we set these standards, we audited all existing schools against them and we asked the architects to design the new schools using these new standards. It is interesting that even the so-called elite schools such as the Convent and SMC, fell very short of the new standards. The idea was to raise all boats and not pull down any so that others could rise,” Jules revealed.
Those new standards were, however, not just about physical infrastructure, but included staffing provisions also with the concept that secondary schools should ideally be staffed by graduate teachers who were qualified teachers. “The thrust of this was to ensure that we could eventually reach a point of equity in provision. Every school in St Lucia—whether in Bouton or in Castries; whether Convent or George Charles—should be staffed by the most qualified and competent teachers available,” Jules emphasized.
On the question of placement and zoning this was an area which Jules says drew some of the most debate and contention. “The tension was between preserving parental choice (which is very important) and zoning of schools. We felt that we could only talk about zoning after the standard for all schools was raised sufficiently. Then the Ministry could truthfully say to a parent that ‘it does not matter which secondary school your child goes to, they will enjoy the same quality of education and caliber of teachers,’” he says.
The idea was for the gradual introduction of zoning as the standards were improved in schools, retain parental choice by allowing an agreed percentage of top performers to select the school of their choice (example if you were in the top 15 percent you could choose to attend any secondary school on island) and other students would be assigned to schools nearest to their area of residence.
This move Dr Jules says would help demolish what he describes as “Education Apartheid.” “This policy was designed to move away from the rigid stratification of schools in which the best schools always received the best students, were given the best facilities and the best teachers. That type of stratification could only lead to “educational apartheid” in which the majority of students were not provided with the quality of support and facilities necessary to bring out the best in them,” Jules stressed. He cited the Ciceron Secondary School as an example where an entirely new curriculum was set up for interactive learning and computer modules were purchased for teaching the major subjects. The former PS noted the progress of the school and was fulsome in his praise for the former Principal Ron Isaac who has since been transferred to the Ministry of Education’s IT department.
A number of initiatives Dr Jules admitted had been introduced here to address the illiteracy problems at the primary and secondary levels. Along with Michael Walker, the Ministry started work on an online literacy, numeracy and health education program that had a TV component, some simple readers, online exercises and a student management system and training of teachers.
Additionally the Minimum Standards Test (MST) was designed to ensure that students were performing to the minimum standards expected for their grade level and it was introduced at both primary and secondary levels so that there would be enough time to do the necessary remediation before they reach these decisive exams.
I then put the following to Dr Jules; “In one of your reports you stated “there is growing evidence that stratification of schools is contributing to social inequality through the marginalization of poorer, less performing students.” Lera Pascal Principal of George Charles in an interview with me said about the Education system in Saint Lucia “it discriminates, it is elitist and it does not give equal opportunity to the students when you categorize students,” I would like you to further expound on your statement and also ask you whether there was any merit to Lera Pascal’s statement.
Said Jules: “I fully agree with Ms Pascal’s statement. The way the system operates it gives full support to the successful schools and the others are not provided with the level of compensatory support necessary to move them from weak performance to higher performance.
If you send the best students to a particular school, provide it with the best facilities, staff it with the most qualified teachers, provide the most competent principal—it will obviously produce the best results. If you add to that the impact of class and privilege— it widens the stratification. Generally speaking, the more educated your parents are the stronger the chances that they will provide (and can afford) the best educational support at home—which is a tremendous boost to the child’s chances. Unless a poor parent truly understands that a good education is the way out of poverty for their child, that child is disadvantaged. The most developed societies and the most successful societies (Finland, Singapore) all ensure that education provides a level playing field. Societies in which privilege becomes entrenched and supported by social institutions inevitably face huge problems with crime —there is a sense of hopelessness in the face of the system which leads people to get ahead by any means necessary.”
Jules then spoke on the CCSLC an assessment program for Secondary Schools which he told us was taking some time to gain total acceptance, but that the Ministry of Education in St Lucia had formally indicated their intention to adopt it. The CCSLC he says should not be seen as an Exam but as a Program that is aimed at ensuring that every student who enters secondary school achieves the key skills and competencies that a good secondary education should provide. It focuses on English and Mathematics’ core concepts and their application and a cluster of options that can be selected by individual ministries.
The mandatory minimum 5 CXC subject for all Secondary School Students Jules indicated to the STAR is a direction that many Caribbean countries are taking and it is consistent with a worldwide trend to raise standards of performance and output. “It is not enough however to just mandate this. Measures must be put in place to ensure that students are able to not just write the exams but succeed in them,” he affirmed. These measures he says are to include the improvement of the quality of teaching, making learning fun and more exciting to students and helping students to understand the importance of some of the subjects to their future career options.
Finally, Dr Jules offered a number of recommendations on the way forward for our Education system. Among them: ensuring that the most competent persons are appointed to head the schools in crisis and if necessary bring back some renown retired principals on short term assignment to work alongside and mentor new appointees. He also suggested the refreshing of staffing of the schools by transferring teachers across the system to help break cliques which develop over years and which are detrimental to their effective administration. Apart from quality teachers Jules also believes that community groups, civic organizations and citizens should be invited to play a more active role in support of these schools to ease the pressure on teachers by leading extra-curricula activities in sports, and student interest areas. In closing he says “we should engage and challenge students to play their part in the governance of the school, in improving the public image of the school and in making the school a model institution in the community.”

(Next week another voice calls for the abolition of the Common Entrance Exam amidst the launch of a computer education program)

   I don’t know how to react to the outpouring of nice words from well-wishers writing from behind the nom de guerre they use when commenting (more often than not acerbically) on my articles. Almost makes me want to pretend things at this stage were a whole lot worse than my doctors have advised, except that I know the moment I return to the stable it’ll be back to the usual horse manure. I might as well enjoy the change of weather, whether or not temporary. On a serious note, I can’t help wondering what would life be like on our favorite lump of cooled lava without such as myself to love-hate. Nevertheless, I promise to keep the outwardly concerned posted—regardless of their motivations, secret or otherwise!

But back to work: I read a couple weeks ago in a British newspaper that Ed Miliband is to recast his leadership around a more upbeat message to avoid his party being seen as “wholly negative in opposing government cuts.” Noted the article: “Aides are anxious to avoid the pitfalls of other leaders of the opposition who always start out promising a ‘new way of doing things’ but slip into an easy comfort zone of opportunistic attacks.” (Think demands for more money by public servants, despite the economic times!)

A new book by Nigel Fletcher, How to Be in Opposition: Life in the Political Shadows, warns that Miliband’s Labour must stick to its strategy to succeed, that “the most successful leaders are those who have adopted a systematic formula for repositioning their party to reconnect with the electorate.” The author worked in opposition for the Tories and founded the Center for Opposition Studies.
The cited Independent article came to mind as I read Nicholas Joseph’s piece in last weekend’s STAR, wherein the Atlanta-based Saint Lucian journalist quoted Kenny Anthony as saying his time in opposition had served him well, had effectively afforded him a better appreciation of the plight of the poor and deprived, and should he be elected to office for a third term they can count finally on receiving the milk and honey denied them during the two terms that Anthony’s Labour Party held office—when conceivably the party leader was uninformed about their malaway status.

As I read Nick’s article I was also reminded of Labour’s disastrous performance in the 2006 Castries Central by-election, the then government’s subsequent suspect apology from the steps of the Castries market “for the way we neglected the constituency” and its pledge to make up for such neglect following the year’s general elections. On the evidence, the people were not fooled. The Independent-turned-UWP candidate Richard Frederick twice made mincemeat of his opposition despite Labour’s all-out effort to regain the seat. Obviously Central Castries had had its fill of broken promises.

But back to Nick’s recollection of Kenny’s latest market-steps statement that exposes his nakedness for all to see. As much as his friends conveniently pretend otherwise, Kenny Anthony is no newcomer to local politics: from his earliest days as a rabble-rouser for the teachers’ union, through his time as a worshipper at the radical George Odlum’s altar, to 1996 he has been a politician, covertly and otherwise.

Conceivably his successful campaigns to relegate Julian Hunte to oblivion and to emerge as the final solution to all of Saint Lucia’s recurring problems leaned heavily on his ostensible appreciation of the plight of the nation’s neglected and deprived. Proof that he claimed to know better than anyone else what the people needed is to be found in his party manifestoes and in his recorded one-sided Conversations with the Nation.

There can be no doubt that Kenny Anthony counted on the vote of the island’s malaway to deliver him to heaven’s door. So persuasive was the rap in those heady days of hope for the hopeless, so smooth was his line about deliverance, even the soi-disant haves fell for Kenny. What then to make of his latest promise based solely on his newly acquired opposition sensibility that allows him for the first time to feel the people’s pain?

   A computerized system developed for the country’s Primary school education system was launched Thursday prompting Prime Minister Stephenson King to explain that not only does the country’s education system needs an overhaul but for the government to rethink its strategy on education in keeping with global developments and global trends.
But the Prime Minister and his government are not the only ones talking about re-shaping the education system. The opposition Saint Lucia Labour Party has been making references to that in the few platform appearances they have had to date along with the Lucian People’s Movement.
But the government has gone beyond just talk, linking with the Taiwanese Government and educator Michael Walker to create something called the In Time Project, which, to simplify is a computerized system aimed at strengthening the ability of teachers and motivating students in their studies.
Other capabilities of this new computerized system, which has already been inculcated into the primary schools curriculum according to Education Minister Arsene James, is its ability to enhance administration management, evaluate the learning abilities of students, enhance the progress of curriculum reform in primary schools and improve the capability of the Ministry of Education in monitoring the progress of schools and making policies.
Another benefit of the system is that it will lay a solid foundation for secondary school computer education and the E-government.
“For some time now we have been speaking of the need to revisit the whole education system not merely for education reform but what I consider to be education transformation. I keep saying that education must be more versatile. It must be more diverse, more appealing not only to our national needs…,” Prime Minister King noted.
The Prime Minister is also of the view that the time has come to re-engineer the education system to capitalize on the possibilities on the international market. He believes that with this new computerized system his government has the opportunity to make the necessary adjustments in various aspects of the education system, for instance adjustments in the curriculum, adjustments in the design of the country’s educational institutions and in the style that is applied to education, among others.
The emphasis on information and communication technology has been an ongoing thing within the Ministry of Education prior to the coming into being of the In Time project. Education Minister Arsene James Thursday spoke of the Ministry’s dream of seeing every child becoming computer literate and having his or her own laptop computer.

Prime Minister King also has a dream that sometime in the future connectivity to the internet and access to a computer would not be an issue to homes and each child. He believes that every home or every child should have access or have in their possession a laptop or a desk top computer.
“That dream of a computer per child is not too far away of being achieved because it is my determination that we fulfill that dream,” King said, adding that he has commence negotiations with two international agencies that would hopefully respond very soon to the government’s request of equipping each and every child in this country with a laptop computer.
But before the dreams of the Prime Minister, the Education Minister and the Ministry of Education become a reality students and schools especially the primary level will have to settle for 1200 computers and 78 flat screen and 42 inch TV’s from the Taiwanese Government for the setting up of computer labs in all primary schools on the island with LIME telecommunications company providing free internet services to the schools. The Taiwanese Government has also provided free teaching materials (six textbooks per child and teacher) to the In Time Project.
Teachers and principals have been trained in the new computerized system. Walker and his team have held over 135 of 220 planned workshops for them in computer orientation, computer assisted instruction, computer maintenance and emergency of health proficiency. More than 800 teachers have attended workshops.
The teaching programmes put together by the In Time Project will be televised via the country’s cable network all in an effort to bring mass education to every community and home in the country.
The major players of this new aspect of the primary school curriculum are the Government of Saint Lucia providers of the computer classrooms, the Government of Taiwan for providing the computers and television sets, LIME for internet connection in all the schools, Walker as the one who put the computerized system together and training teachers and primary school principals who are the ones who will be coordinating the programme.
Taiwan is providing additional assistance towards the readiness of the computer classrooms because of the financial constraints and man power shortage the government is experiencing, according to the Taiwanese Ambassador here Tom Chou.

   Yet another marker in history has been laid in the Criminal Division of the St Lucia High Court. With the recent spate of police killings on island and in previous times, the public wondered whether the police as individuals were untouchable by virtue of their office. Lo and behold they are not. On February 28, 2011 Police Constable 669 Garvin Soudat became the first police officer to stand trial in the High Court to account for his actions in the line of duty.

After just over a week of listening to the facts of the case, it took a jury of two men and seven women just under two hours to deliver its eight to one majority verdict of not guilty of manslaughter. During the course of the trial the Crown, led by Director of Public Prosecutions Victoria Charles-Clarke, called a total of fourteen witnesses while defense counsel Lorne Theophilus sufficed with just his client’s testimony.

Justice Kenneth Benjamin noted in his summary of facts to the jury that this case was out of the ordinary in that the jury did not have to decide whether Soudat committed an act but whether his act was reckless under the circumstances.
In the indictment, it was alleged that on October 21, 2006 around 5:30pm at Troumasse, Micoud Soudat committed manslaughter by acting recklessly in such a manner that created an obvious and serious risk of causing physical injury thereby causing the death of 70-year-old Steven Flavius alias Morrison of Saltibus. This was contrary to Section 92 (1)(b) of the St Lucia Criminal Code which states “A person upon whom the law imposes a duty or who has taken upon himself or herself any duty tending to preserve life and who acts recklessly in such a manner as to create an obvious and serious risk of causing physical injury to some other person who thereby causes the death of that other person.”
The events of that fateful day unfolded in court. In 2006 Soudat had already served seven years as a cop. After training school he worked at Central Police Station then was transferred to Vieux Fort’s Beat and Patrol Department. He later served at Vieux Fort’s Criminal Investigations Department for six years before he was transferred to Micoud’s CID.
On October 21, 2006, Soudat was on duty at the Micoud Police Station around 5pm when he received a call from the police control room informing him there was a red omnibus en route from Vieux Fort to Castries with a man in the left-rear of the bus wearing a red baseball cap who was carrying a firearm and other contrabands. Soudat spoke to his supervisor, then corporal now constable 496 Allan Providence. A briefing was convened immediately with Soudat, PC 167 Denis and PC 215 Chicot. The three were issued with service firearms. Denis had a .38 revolver, Chicot had a shot gun and Soudat was issued with a .38 revolver and an M16 rifle.
The three proceeded to board Providence’s private vehicle as the police van was down due to damaged radiator. They were all dressed in plain casual clothes. According to Assistant Superintendent of Police Gregory Montoute it is the custom for non-uniformed officers who work the afternoon/evening shift. The four made their way to Lady Michael Street where a red omnibus was seen approaching the vehicle. Providence, who was the driver, reached out the window and flagged the bus. The bus stopped and Soudat, Denis and Chicot searched the vehicle. No one matching the description given by police control was found.
The cops then proceeded to the Vieux Fort/Micoud Highway and stopped about 300 to 400 feet away from the Ti Rocher junction near to the bridge. This is an area where the police usually hold traffic checks. On arrival, Soudat and Denis disembarked the vehicle and took separate positions on the road. Soudat stood to the right of the road, facing Vieux Fort while his counterpart took a position on the left side of the road facing Vieux Fort.
While there, Soudat testified: “I spotted a red omnibus about 200 feet away being driven very fast. I imitated the number one stop signal with my hand in the air and my palm facing the vehicle in anticipation that the vehicle would stop. When I initiated the stop signal, the rifle was slung over my body. The vehicle began drawing closer to me at an accelerated speed. When I realized the vehicle wouldn’t stop, I quickly threw myself to the right side of the road. When I turned back I saw Denis do the same as the vehicle came towards him. At that point I saw two flashes emerge from the back screen of the vehicle which was followed by two gunshots. By flashes I mean the flame which is let out from the nozzle of a vile. I saw the flashes to the left-rear of the omnibus. At that point the vehicle strayed off the left side of the road and went closer to the right side. Then I heard a third gunshot which was louder than the first two. The vehicle was about thirty to fifty feet away. I took aim at the left rear tire of the bus.”
The omnibus continued driving and turned into the village and the officers pursued. The bus stopped at the Texaco gas station. When the officers arrived, a huge crowd was gathered around the bus—one man was dead and another severely injured.
Soudat testified he discharged a single round from the M16 rifle. He took aim at that specific tire because it was closest to him and the only reason he aimed at the tire was to stop the bus. He admitted he was unaware of how many occupants were onboard or that it was a public omnibus. He went further to say the incident occurred in a matter of seconds but maintains he had a rational presence of mind. To illustrate that he told the court before he fired he set the M16 selection on semi-automatic to give him better control of the weapon. According to Soudat, “The automatic selection would be dangerous and even reckless to fire at a moving vehicle.”

Charles-Clarke stated the fact that alternative means should have been exhausted before firing as a “firearm should be the last resort.” She emphasized in her closing arguments the officers had no means of identifying themselves as police because they were not in uniform and did not have on reflector vests with the word “POLICE” on it. However, defense counsel counter-argued that the first red omnibus stopped when it was flagged by Providence. Additionally, Osmond Peter who was a passenger on the bus and also a Crown witness admitted see the officers on the road and identifying Chicot. Peter further admitted knowing Chicot was a police officer. Peter told the court he told the driver Berton Elibox to continue driving.
The DPP argued the officers could have alerted other police stations along the route so that a road block could have been initiated. Soudat responded that he believed his life and the lives of his fellow officers were in danger and so he reacted by first taking cover from the gun fire then attempted to stop the vehicle.

Pathologist Dr Stephen King recovered a bullet from the deceased’s head and ballistics expert Inspector Graham Husbands from the Royal Barbados Police Force matched it to Soudat’s rifle. A fragment of bullet was found measuring 2mm just below the entrance of the wound. A deformed bullet was found to the left frontal lobe of the brain. The cause of death was brain damage from a single gunshot wound that entered the back upper left portion of the head. The wound was caused by a bullet fired from a distance and the star-shaped wound.
Scenes of Crime officer Corporal 52 Petrus Emmanuel testified he swept the bus for evidence and found three live rounds of .38 shells in the rear of the bus and a red cap. According to Husbands, the ammunition did not match any of the police issued weapons.
The back windscreen of the vehicle was shattered. A passenger to the left-rear sustained a mouth injury. The deceased was seated in the middle of two other passengers on the seat behind the driver.
Crown witnesses confirmed there were three adults in the rear seat of the bus with three children. The defense counsel took particular interest in two of the Crown’s witnesses who were seated in the rear—Charlene Mitchel who was seated in to the rear-right of the bus and Thaddeus Laurent who was seated to the left-rear. There was a woman between them. All three had children with them.
Mitchel and Laurent have two children together. Laurent received a bullet wound through the right side of his mouth as a result of the incident. Both Mitchel and Laurent admitted Laurent had recently been convicted of a firearm offense. Laurent had a bag with him which he claims contained tools which he says he handed to Mitchel when they boarded the bus because he had his son with him.
Defense counsel, in his closing, told the jury Laurent was seated at the left-rear of the vehicle which was consistent with the report from police control. A red cap was recovered in the rear of the vehicle. Shells were found in the rear of the vehicle. As such, it was reasonable to conclude Laurent did in fact fire upon the police.
The DPP rejected the defense’s conclusion. No witness recalled whether Laurent wore a red cap that day nor was any firearm recovered from Laurent or the bus nor did anyone provide evidence they saw Laurent open fire at the police.
Additionally, the police never tested Laurent’s person, his clothing or the bus for gun powder residue. She criticized the manner in which the police tried to stop the bus that day saying “there is nothing to indicate they took steps to stop that vehicle in the proper manner.”
Soudat has been on suspension with half pay since the day of the incident in 2006. The top brass of the force has to convene a meeting to discuss Soudat’s reinstatement as well as the issue of the pay he did not received while suspended.

   Two or three days following the public announcement of Sir Allan Louisy’s passing Kenny Anthony observed during a live interview with Newsspin’s Timothy Poleon that I had chronicled the political life of the recently deceased—hard to believe, a period spanning barely seven tortuous, if not torturous, years. In his own turn, Tom Walcott acknowledged what Anthony had said with reference to It’ll Be Alright in the Morning and Lapses and Infelicities, but predictably went on further to inform Tim’s lunchtime audience that I had elided from my chronicles the most important part of the deceased former Labour Party leader and prime minister’s history.
Throughout their political lives, Tom told Tim, he and Sir Allan had been especially close, and not for one moment do I doubt that. After all, Tom would never speak ill of the dead, would he? Certainly, by late 1973, shortly after a widely respected Louisy abruptly quit his relatively cushy job as an Associated States judge to swim with voracious political piranhas in the then particularly muddy, murky waters of Labour Party politics, Tom had metamorphosed from bare-back-in-William-Peter-Boulevard Odlum-led radical into a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-his-mouth behind-the-scenes supporter of Allan Louisy, conceivably the day’s epitome of conservatism—precisely the kind of leader Tom, Kenneth Foster, Hunter Francois, Evans Calderon and several other important if impotent SLP stalwarts of the remarkably tumultuous period imagined was the panacea for their party’s image problems.
As close to Louisy as Tom may well have been, he was, like so many other Saint Lucians at the time, taken off guard shortly after Labour took office in 1979, when Odlum publicly declared their leader unfit to lead, whether party or country. Moreover, that prior to the SLP’s predictable election victory Louisy had promised after six months to resign in favor of Odlum as prime minister, at which point Louisy would relocate to Government House. Of course, Louisy never kept that admitted promise. Instead, he permitted the country to bleed near to death from wounds consequently inflicted by a selfishly tunnel-visioned George Odlum and Peter Josie—wounds never completely healed, reminders of which are in the burglar bars that today disfigure commerce in William Peter Boulevard, to say nothing about the fallout now evident in current youth-behavior patterns!
Oh, but all of that I’ve indisputably chronicled in my earlier-mentioned books. With good reason, I have never bought Tom’s tale that Louisy consciously permitted in our country’s best interests all of the above hinted at disasters—a tale that alas cannot now be validated. So, when Tom implies the then prime minister’s failure to act decisively spared Saint Lucia further catastrophes, I know not what the hell he might be hinting at. Besides, Sir Allen had himself chosen the moment to reveal the identity of his secret advisor during the worst of times for the country and its prime minister: none other than then leader of the opposition Sir John Compton. As for the occasion of Sir Allen’s somewhat shocking revelation, it was during an appearance on HTS’ Perspectives with Teddy Francis shortly after Sir John’s passing.
According to the former Associated States judge, who on the recalled occasion was doubtless as sober as always, when he most needed support and direction it was Sir John who provided both in daily letters. So, now, what to make of Tom’s alleged umbilical connection with Louisy? Who to believe, the now deceased Sir Allen himself or Tom the
perpetual promoter of all things SLP? (It occurs to me, improbable though it sounds, that Tom may well have contributed to Compton’s instructional letters to Louisy . . . but hey, I am obviously speculating!)
Then there were Kenny’s public remembrances of Sir Allan for the presumed benefit of Newsspin fans. The current opposition leader sounded most sincere as he recalled episodes in the life of the dearly departed. Good for him that he avoided the fact that despite George Odlum’s insistence that the law governing the age of senators be appropriately modified to accommodate a then too young Kenny Anthony’s senatorial ambitions, a most reluctant Prime Minister Louisy had dragged his feet to the extent that by the time the new law was in place Kenny Anthony had turned 30. Others would later benefit but not the man in whose name the law was changed. But better to hear from George Odlum himself about the Louisy-Kenny political relationship, if only in the beginning. He is revisiting 1979, when he argued that the Labour Party party should have Anthony run for the Vieux Fort North seat:
“Allan Louisy wouldn’t hear of it,” Odlum recalled. “The executive voted against Anthony because they felt he belonged to the so-called progressive wing of our party. The truth is that they saw him as an intellectual. Louisy and his gargoyle executive worried that Anthony would strengthen my hand in the party and the 1979 SLP wasn’t ready to deal with that possibility, however remote.”
In fairness to all parties, dead or alive, I should also say that at an unforgettable monster gathering in Vieux Fort on the eve of the 1997 elections that delivered to the relative political neophyte Kenny Anthony 16 of the 17 seats in contention, the emcee read out an endorsement of the SLP’s latest leader, allegedly written by an absent but evidently tuned-in Allan Louisy. By all the letter disclosed, Louisy had gone into hibernation after their party’s 1982 demise in honor of a pledge to his late wife. Now he wanted it known, in light of widespread suggestions to the contrary, that he had been among the persons “who strongly supported the decision to invite Kenny Anthony to take Labour into the 1997 elections, because I was certain Julian Hunte could not lead our party to victory!”
If for nothing else, Kenny Anthony owes Allan Louisy a debt of gratitude far greater than that owed his other acknowledged dead hero George F L Charles. At a later date, more on Sir Allen from the perspective of a young boy growing up in Laborie a few yards from the Louisy family’s home.