Articles - News

   I recently witnessed a young woman getting punched in the face by her ex boyfriend. She brushed off the hard blow, something that would probably have a lot of girls down on floor wincing in pain as if she’d just been kissed on the cheek. I sat there not quite knowing what to do, with two alleged police officers looking on, barely restraining the man who’d thrown the punch.
They claimed to be police officers and the man who’d thrown the punch was a criminal, complete with shackles bounding his feet. But why wasn’t he handcuffed, and why was he in the house of his ex girlfriend, a young woman who has made countless reports against the man who has abused her on several occasions before?
Lost? Don’t be. On the account of the officers who paid a visit to Solange Collier’s* home on Tuesday, August 16, they were there to conduct a search of a bag left behind by her ex boyfriend some months ago when he was arrested and sent to jail. They said their search was in connection with a robbery, and even though Solange informed them that the same bag had already been searched by another set of officers about a week before who’d also claimed they were investigating the case, they insisted upon searching it again.
To her surprise the officers opened the doors of their vehicle and out came her ex boyfriend who officers allowed into the house to search the bag himself. Solange revealed that the first set of officers had left with a necklace and engagement ring her ex boyfriend had given her and said she’d given it up without challenging them because she felt they were just doing their job. Sometime after the first set of officers came, her ex called from a cell phone from prison to ask about another ring, an SMC ring to be precise. When he came to her home, the ring appeared to be one of the items he and the police were searching for.
“When the first set of officers took the jewelry I told them no problem, they could keep it, I don’t need it,” Solange told the STAR. “I don’t want to be part of it at all. I loved my ring; he gave it to me for my birthday. Once it’s in the law you can just keep it. I would have given them the SMC ring if I had it because I want no problems with the law.”
Things went downhill from there. Although the officers said they’d come to search the bag, they allowed the incarcerated man to walk about the small apartment freely, throwing words at his ex girlfriend because she had moved on and she had someone else sleeping over, examining the stove he’d bought her and even arguing with her. At that point, the only comment from the officers was “that’s not the time for that.”
Solange, a mother of two and a nail technician, turned her attention back to her client but somehow her ex managed to get close enough to her to plant a solid punch to her ear in her home with two police officers present. The officers paid no attention to her and didn’t even notice when she picked up a pair of scissors to defend herself. Being the closest person to her I managed to hold her back before she had time to retaliate and even calm her down.
From the moment the man in question hit the young woman he should have been taken out of the house, handcuffed even but that was not done. Before he left he convinced officers that he had just one more thing to say to her, and it was clear he was just trying to get close enough to hit her again. With both officers standing not more than two feet away from him, this time all he managed was to make a deadly threat to her. He was in jail for a “minor charge,” and would soon be out. He left, kicking an ashtray out the door, his threatening words still hanging in the air.
“He told me when he comes out he coming for me, and he coming for all of us and that is a threat. He is a criminal and if he could do it once he could do it again. He has no limit. When he’s ready he doesn’t care if it’s an old man, woman or child. He threatened me in front of the police and they did not even ask him to keep quiet. They were asking me to finish with that. For police of such high ranks, what if he picked up something and stabbed me, sent chemicals from my table into my eyes, all because you brought a criminal to my home, and I can’t do anything about it.”
“He came without handcuffs, a violent man like that, why?” the young woman questioned. “He’s escaped jail already. Once when they took him upstairs Liat for court he escaped with handcuffs behind his back how you don’t expect him to escape now? He found me the time he escaped and beat the crap out of me in 2009. We were not even together then. I broke up with him and every time he comes out of jail he keeps pestering my life. For him, when he goes to jail and comes out I’m the only person, I’m supposed to be his main woman and he can do whatever he wants. That’s not the way I want to live my life. Every time he goes to jail he calls my phone saying he’s going to kill me, he’s going to do me this or that, he’s going to hang me, if I’m with anyone else he’s going to kill the guy. He threatens my boyfriend, calls up his mother and his sister. I have no idea how he finds their numbers to call them, he’s just a menace to society.”
“For him I can’t fight him,” she continued. “He’s threatened my family already, I cannot fight him. Once someone gave me a ride to the hospital. I was naked on the road with my panty and bra and my son because I’d escaped from a guesthouse in River Stone. He had me in the house, I could not go anywhere and I was there with my son. I never let my son go anywhere, to me he’s my saviour. What that man would have done to me a long time, I’ve figured he has second thoughts because of my son.”
When I returned to Solange’s house later on Tuesday afternoon she looked completely out of it and was holding cotton in place in her left ear where she’d been punched. The young woman explained that her uncle and boyfriend had taken her
to the hospital that morning after blood started dripping out of her ear down her face. She was now on heavy medication.”
“I have to go back for an X-ray,” she said. “They told me to bring the medical report to the station and tell the officers the doctor’s name so they could make contact. I went to make a police report with the cotton in my ear and the officers didn’t understand how I could get assaulted in front of two officers in my home by a man who is supposed to be incarcerated. The officer was looking at me strange maybe wondering if I was lying. I was just as confused as he was. He asked if the officers were present when I was hit and I told him yes, the man had no handcuffs. He asked me If I was sure about three or four times, then he asked what the officers did when that happened. I told him they did nothing. He told me the officers should have taken a report from me right away.”
“Once a criminal, always a criminal and he will never change,” Solange said finally. “That guy has choked me until I passed out, I know about him. He’s a violent guy. Family court knows about him and they advised me that when he comes out I should be in the shelter and the police just come and bring him into my home. That’s dangerous to me! If my children were there I would have felt more threatened. I want everyone to know, if you have a problem, speak out and let everyone know. Everything that is small must grow. I really want people to hear me.””

   The Saint Lucia Labour Party announces the launch of its candidate for Choiseul, Attorney at Law, Lorne Theophilus. Mr. Theophilus will be launched on Sunday 7th August, 2011 at the La Fargue playing field from 1.30 p.m.
According to the SLP, as the date for the next general elections draws closer the Party continues to prepare to offer to the Saint Lucian electorate a viable alternative to the clueless King Administration, and to help bring an end to the lowest level of governance ever witnessed by the citizens of this country.
As declared by the SLP several weeks ago, it has completed the selection of all of its seventeen candidates. All candidates have been named, except the candidate for Dennery North, who will be made public at a time considered appropriate by the Party.
The SLP expects the launch of its Choiseul candidate to be a huge event, reflecting the excitement which Mr. Lorne Theophilus’ candidacy has brought to the people of Choiseul and the country in general.

   The appearance of the low-cost carrier, REDjet, in the relations between the countries of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) has tossed up a number of issues especially the conviction by the public that the cost of air travel in the region is exorbitant.
The complaint about the high cost of travel was being made well before REDjet made an appearance. At one point, it caused LIAT - the airline owned by the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and St Vincent and the Grenadines – to publish its fare structure which revealed that government taxes on flights originating in most countries are extremely high.
So, the first point is that the cost of air travel within the Caribbean is high in part because Government taxes are high. And, whereas governments might argue that they need the taxes to maintain and expand airports, the airlines will counter argue that they pay landing fees which should be segregated and put into a fund for airport upkeep and improvements. LIAT, incidentally, is a huge contributor to the revenues of governments into whose countries they fly. In the case of some countries, LIAT is the biggest contributor of landing fees to government earnings.
The cost of LIAT’s operations when compared with that of Caribbean Airways Ltd (CAL), the successor airline to BWIA and owned by the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, is higher because of one very important reason. LIAT has to buy its fuel at commercial prices but the government of Trinidad and Tobago (an oil producing country) subsidies fuel to CAL - not just the fuel it buys in Trinidad but fuel wherever bought for all its operations. LIAT (and incidentally REDjet) is suffering from an unlevel playing field in the context of the fuel subsidy which CAL alone enjoys.
The Bahamian-operated airline Western Air has become CAL’s first casualty. The airline has announced that it is suspending flights to Jamaica due to what it says is “competition” from CAL.
In 2008, the last year for which audited statements were laid before the Trinidad and Tobago Parliament, the Fuel Subsidy for CAL was US$36 million on consumption of 26 million gallons. Airline expert, John Gilmore says that “it is likely that current fuel consumption is now more than double as CAL’s operations have increased”.
That is a hefty price for the taxpayers of Trinidad and Tobago to be paying simply to maintain CAL’s flight operations. If this large subsidy were not being made to CAL, the money could have been spent on education, health and social welfare projects desperately needed in the country. What exactly Trinidad and Tobago gets from subsidising CAL, apart from being able to claim that it has a national airline with a limited regional role, is unclear.
In any event, it appears that the travelling public in Trinidad and Tobago are more loyal to their pockets than they are to CAL. According to the Chairman and CEO of REDjet, Ian Burns, the demand for bookings from July 28 when the airline starts flights into Trinidad is more than when they first launched on April 13. It seems, therefore, that not even the fuel subsidy will save CAL from competition over prices.
In the wake of a successful lawsuit by REDjet in the Courts of Trinidad and Tobago, the airline was given clearance to fly into Trinidad and then, separately, Jamaica gave permission. But, these permissions came only after the most amazing filibustering by both governments. Few persons believe that the refusals, denials, and demands for safety checks were anything more than measures to protect CAL from competition.



In the case of Jamaica, the reluctance of the government to allow REDjet entry, while the deal for CAL to buy out Air Jamaica was not yet fully sealed, is understandable though not by any means fair to REDjet. If the deal between CAL and Air Jamaica had fallen through, the Jamaica government would have found itself with a huge hole to fill in the arrangements under which the International Monetary Fund is providing the government with a Stand-by facility.
Remarkably,the Chairman of CAL, George Nicholas, has now indicated that the airline will be lowering its fares. He is adamant that the airline is not doing so because of competition from REDjet but due, he says, to, “(The) efficiencies that we get now with joining with Air Jamaica, common fleeting, the use of one reservation system, pooling our intelligence and pooling our resources, so we have economy to scale that very few carriers in the region have.”
What is truly remarkable about Mr Nicholas’ statement is that he has identified efficiencies arising from the “joining with Air Jamaica” as the basis for dropping fares. This same notion of the nationally-owned Caribbean airlines “joining” a shared arrangement to reduce costs and decrease fares has been suggested time and time again without an appropriate response. If CAL, Air Jamaica and LIAT had sat down to share out the routes within the Caribbean and into it from external locations, and to divide up some operational costs, the three airlines could have had a chance to serve the region’s people and its tourism better.
Instead, what the Caribbean public saw was a display of selfish nationalism at the political level in Trinidad and Jamaica, crude Board room politics, and a disregard for the Caribbean travelling public and tourism. As Ian Bertrand, a regional airline expert puts it: “Imagine CARICOM countries knew for years that the Multilateral Air Services Agreement was incompatible with the Revised Treaty of Chaguaramas (the CARICOM treaty) and did nothing. Imagine that despite recent political statements embracing open skies, the very recent bilateral discussions between Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados did nothing to change the closed sky structure of their Air Services Agreement”.
What is even worse, at no time was St Vincent Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves brought into the wounding discussions over permitting REDjet to fly - and he is the person in the CARICOM quasi-cabinet with responsibility for overseeing air transportation.
REDjet may have been given permission to fly to Trinidad and Jamaica thereby adding to their Guyana route, but that is only a battle, a real war is yet to come unless good sense infects the thinking of CARICOM’s leadership and a sensible aviation policy is established taking account of both commercial realities and public good. One of those realities may be an examination of the value of the REDjet model. Another would be the establishment of a CARICOM Aviation Authority to set common aviation rules throughout CARICOM funded by CARICOM-wide aviation charges.
Responses and previous commentaries at: www.sirronaldsanders.com

   Dear Editor,

Please allow the opportunity to comment briefly on two matters.

Firstly, I wish to extend sincere congratulations to Professor Rose Marie Belle Antoine on her recent election to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. What a remarkable achievement for women of this region.

Such an appointment speaks volumes of Professor Antoine as a professional and individual, given that Commissioners must be of the highest integrity, impartial and be able to speak courageously on all matters relating to the protection of human rights.

As the first CARICOM woman elected to such an auspicious post, it serves indeed as an inspiration to the women of this country and by extension the region that women continue to break all glass ceilings. Bravo Professor Antoine.

The other matter is one that is more troubling and concerns the apology I read a few weeks ago on the front page of the Crusader to the “Do Something World” personnel.

Understandably, to protect itself from libel, it makes sense why the Crusader would publish that apology. However, given that it was an article penned by me, I must admit that it was surprising to me. After all, the article never mentioned Do Something St. Lucia.

I was disturbed that the “Do Something World” team would be so quick to remove any association with the red party when some of their activities to date can easily be tainted by a yellow brush.

Take the example of that Yellow-tee-shirt clean-up in Soufriere, prominently featuring Senator Allen Chastenet. Not once in that episode was the sitting Parliamentarian given as much prominence at the Senator — not even on the Government television station which covered the story.

In fact, even on a certain UWP hopeful’s Facebook page was the “Do Something World” project featured. A few weeks before that, the same group went to do work in Castries South East, then after in Gros Islet. But I’m still waiting to hear about “Do Something” in Castries East or Vieux Fort, or other communities in need of help.

Of course one may recall that Prime Minister King led the charge with his public endorsement of this initiative. (I think he may have even provided financial assistance too.) It’s too bad the PM has never shown similar sentiments to other local initiatives, admittedly though most were started by the previous administration.

But it begs the question: Why not be all-encompassing to all other organizations doing similar work on the island? Could it be that the Party of the establishment, historically UWP, can only relate to what is foreign?

Yolanda O’Brien

   According to the Saint Lucia Labour Party the Address to the Nation delivered last night by Prime Minister Stephenson King was a pathetic display of nothingness. It was empty and lacked any substance whatsoever. It was an exercise in futility, loaded with uncertainties and inaccuracies, speculation and presumption. It amounted to nothing less than a waste of the nation’s time.

In the view of the SLP the promotion of King’s address by his PR people was delivered to deceive the nation. The promise to address “matters of national interest” never materialized. The SLP contends that people tuned in with hopes and expectations that the Prime Minister might calm their anxieties and disclose the date for the next General Elections. However, as predicted by the SLP, the Prime Minister tried to use last night’s address to shift public attention from the serious economic situation facing the country. He said nothing about escalating unemployment, the absence of foreign direct investment, or the fact that his Party has failed miserably to deliver on promises made to the nation in 2006, including the creation of 7,000 jobs annually.

Hoping the Prime Minister may have awoken from his long and silent slumber, the Labour Party offered him five questions to be answered during last night’s address to the nation. Prime Minister King needs to explain why the nation deserves no answers on those questions:

The questions, once again, are:

- Why has the UWP government given such low priority to the rehabilitation of the country after the passage of Hurricane Tomas?

- Why has his government given priority to borrowing close to $90 million to purchase and complete the derelict Daher building?

- What is being done about the loss of 500 acres of the country’s prime lands?

- As Prime Minister, what does he plan to do about the continuing lawless behavior of members of his Administration?

- Why did Minister Guy Joseph allow the Ministry of Communications and Works to assist a foreign company make a false declaration to Customs leading to the seizure of equipment?

The SLP insists that King respond to the people’s concerns and in addition answer the following additional questions:

- Why has permission been given to an Italian Company to establish a restaurant on the green space next to the Sans Souci Bridge, against the advice of the technocrats at the Ministry of Planning?

- Why are SSDF funds being used to set up a television station and to employ a manager at a salary of $12,500 per month on the eve of a general election? And why is NTN not considered capable of serving the needs of SSDF?

The SLP is convinced that in Prime Minister King’s desperation to protect his job he has forgotten that his real employers are the people of the country.