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NO MORAL BASIS FOR AGREEMENT TO PROCEED

Dec 06, 2012 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

There represents no lawful or moral basis for the government to proceed any longer with the agreements that were reached concerning Linden.
The components of that agreement represented part of a single undertaking. That single undertaking involved principally ascertaining the circumstances surrounding the shooting to death of the persons at Linden last July, the placing on hold of the tariff increases until a technical team undertakes an assessment of the tariffs and other obligations concerning television and development for Linden.
By breaching the single undertaking through the passage of a no-confidence motion in the House of Assembly thus prejudging and violating the spirit of the agreement, the combined opposition has left the government with no other alternative but to conclude that it is no longer morally bound to proceed longer with the implementation of the various facets of the agreement which signed as a single undertaking.
It was the opposition in fact which just prior to the signing agreed that there has to be agreement on everything or nothing can be said to have been agreed to.
More fundamentally, it is doubtful whether the government can be held legally liable for not proceeding. And given the vicious actions of the combined opposition in trying within the legislature to lynch the Minister of Home Affairs, the government should seriously consider its options at this stage.
The basis for proceeding with the agreement simply no longer exists. The combined opposition has acted in bad faith. It cannot be said to be interested in getting to the truth of what took place when it firstly blamed the police for what happened but only wants the Minister of Home Affairs to be held accountable.
Secondly, it cannot be interested in justice when it seeks to prejudge the very Commission of Inquiry that it had sought to establish and to which it had insisted should be comprised of persons from the Caribbean.
The joint opposition is only interested in justice on its own terms and this can never be justice nor can it be acceptable because it demonstrates bad faith and untrustworthiness in the approach towards this issue.
If the opposition parties were serious about justice for the victims of the Linden tragedy, they would have ensured that the terms of reference dealt with the organization of the protests.
But the opposition knows why it suddenly decided to reject the very aspect of the terms of reference which dealt with the organization of the protests. In short, it decapitated one of the most important aspects which ought to have been considered by the Commission of Inquiry: how the protests leading to the shooting were organized and whether the manner of the organization of the protest contributed to the tragedy.
The Commission of Inquiry, therefore, is excluding an important aspect of trying to find out just what went wrong. How can you examine what caused an action when the antecedents are ignored? The combined opposition did not wish for the names of those who organized the protest to be made known or for the actions of these forces to be placed under scrutiny by the Commission of Inquiry.
The opposition is afraid of what that will reveal.
Is the opposition afraid of the implications? It is clear that once the Commission of Inquiry’s report is that lawyers for those whose properties were damaged and destroyed, as well as those who suffered pecuniary losses or were otherwise affected by unlawful acts during the crisis are going to sue for vicarious liability.
That was clearly hinted at during the final stages of the hearings into the inquiry. Therefore legal action seems almost inevitable against those who were supposed to ensure that protest action did not descend into violence or anarchy, as well as those whose actions impeded others from going about their lawful business.
Those who suffered losses are not going to take action to recover these losses because those losses run into hundreds of millions of dollars and if somebody or a number of persons are likely to be held accountable for those losses.

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