The irony of the International Criminal Court entering T&T for the sake of prosecuting a national is that its establishment was the brainchild of Tobagonian ANR Robinson and that one of his countrymen has violated the rules and regulations of the court necessitating their intervention in putting an end to the lawless dictatorial direction the country is headed via the PM and his government.
When we think of the ICC, we think genocide, we assume it is about massacre and mayhem cause by the atrocities of war; we think Yugoslavia and the war between Serbs, Bosnians, Croats and the other breakaway factions; we see the reports of murder, rape and destruction live and direct courtesy CNN, the BBC and other international media networks and tend to think that is only in such worst case scenario that the courts would it intervene; only, also, of the Hutus and Tutsis of Rwanda slaughtering each other there is need for the ICC.
So hear what people, the court intervenes in a wide scope of matters such as, genocide, crimes against humanity – murder, rape, imprisonment sexual slavery of women and children, torture, apartheid and deportation; war crimes; crimes of aggression etc.
Since the ICC is, relatively, a recently created organisation, it is obviously open to ideas and situations that widens the scope of its jurisdictional mandate; thus if there is a matter relating to the pandemic, as in the case of Trinidad not receiving vaccines because the country’s leadership is deficient, because it is lax and lackadaisical, because its PM has a bully approach to governance and so refuses to source it where it exists because he has a pathological ego problem and says publicly that to ask is to beg and he is not doing that although hundreds of the country’s citizens are dying, then, certainly, there is something for it to consider; especially that while India, for example, was an early global donor, sought help from the world when it became overwhelmed by the pandemic, our leader, obsessed by his narcissism, that he is the boss and who vex loss, is letting people perish to prove that political muscle, the support of his sycophants, are all that matters, ignoring the fact that a leader must know when to stand tall and when to bow down – as Gandhi did: to the British monarchy he stood tall but to the lowest caste Indian peasant he clasped his hand and bowed – because he knew from whence his power and popularity originated and for whom he battled; and also of Pope Francis going down to the ground to wash the feet of devotees.
When you have a Minister abusing his power because, as he boasts, nobody has rioted, that is an open admission that he was committing oppressive, tyrannical acts against the citizens and doing so because there was not even passive resistance to his abuse of power and believing he could do as he well please.
The ICC was established to prevent such authoritarian acts; to convict and jail those who felt that they were above the law.
Isn’t it about time T&T begins to benefit from a court of law that had its genesis here? We have lots of legal luminaries who have distinguished themselves at the Privy Council, isn’t it about time they let their brilliance shine at The Hague as we free this country from its banana republic-type leadership?