irietrini@yahoo.com

Essar’s man of steel

• I don’t know what environ-mentalists are to make of the appointment of former CoP Trevor Paul as Essar Steel security chief.
• That we care more about the head of security at Essar is a sad statement of where our priorities are.
• Should we now expect more manhandling, more threatening behaviour and more arrests of protesting residents and other citizens?

Strengthen your mind

We living in serious times

It’s such a mysterious time

We living in serious times

—Strengthen Your Mind, Dezarie

In a week when the killings were more than you could keep track of, a news story stood out and caused me a greater level of alarm even than shoot-outs in broad daylight in downtown Port-of-Spain.

Just as the Claxton Bay mangrove was given a three-month stay of execution by the Environmental Management Authority, the company that is currently its greatest threat announced a new head of security.

I don’t know what environmentalists are to make of the appointment of former Commissioner of Police Trevor Paul to that post. I mean, it’s the first time I’ve heard about any post at Essar Steel and it just happens to be security. 

But then when I think back to the “consultations” in the central communities that surround their proposed steel mill, there was always more security around than there was sense coming from speakers.

Like they want to protect themselves from unarmed women and children like those Alcoa executives who thought that people like Mrs Ashby, the 74-year-old Chatham resident, was somehow a threat.

Like people aren’t supposed to get blasted vex and shout and gesticulate and behave like wajangs when you tell them you’re putting a steel mill in their backyards.

It’s as if when they put on a uniform and adopt an official corporation line, they lose all track of humanity, emotion or sense of connection.

The thing about the Babylon system is that it’s not just action that is a threat. A mere thought or expression of concern is enough to destabilise their plans.

Citizens protest the most when they express the possibility of wanting things to be different or better.

It’s why this country is in such turmoil now and nobody knows how to change it, for better or worse.

But the fact that the EMA seems to be growing some cojones and actually managed to give the Claxton Bay mangrove a three-month stay of execution means that somebody is actually listening. 

Which is why I suppose in the story about the new post for Mr Paul, Essar official Prem Singh said that Paul would also be helping them with public relations.

I guess both involve spin to get people to do what you want them to do.

That we care more about the head of security at Essar is a sad statement of where our priorities are.

Anywhere else, people would want to know about health and safety or environmental engineers. Anywhere else people would be demanding graphs showing wind direction and a plan for a buffer zone and stipulations on effluent.

But not here. Here we get a story about a former Commissioner of Police helping a multinational set up a security force.

To force residents to see things their way.

Or to force environmentalists to behave themselves.

No-one will however force Essar to be accountable to the community. No one will force Trevor Paul to answer for his failures to even make a dent in the crime situation during his tenure as CoP, in the same way that no-one will force Essar to be accountable to the community.

In the same way that no-one will force the EMA to do the right thing come November 22 when it’s supposed to deliver its final verdict on the port that is set to destroy the Claxton Bay mangrove.

But it’s just trees. And everybody knows that money doesn’t grow on trees, which is why you need to chop them down so that you can put up something that will give you money.

Does Trevor Paul’s appointment mean we can expect more manhandling, more threatening behaviour and more arrests of protesting residents and other citizens exercising their constitutionally enshrined right to freely express their opinions and protect their homes and communities from the clear and present danger of a steel mill and a port?

The trouble with environmentalists is that we’re the least predictable group. There is no precedent for mass or sustained action around environmental issues and so this means that any number could play.

Better Trevor Paul, I suppose, than some corporate communications teeth-skinner to go out there and have lots of photo opportunities with community members they manage to buy out with promises of funding for their football side or a some such folly.

The fact that Essar thinks Trevor Paul was the most qualified man for the job suggests that they see the residents of the community and the nation’s environmental activists as a threat, a lawless bunch they desperately need to protect themselves against.

And that can either be interpreted as a huge diss or the greatest of compliments.