Was it Something I said?

Do you know where my fingers have been? (photo: Searchlight Newspaper)

10 months ago, on 29th November 2011, I churned out a lengthy blog posting titled "Arnhim Eustace, Yellow Journalist (and five other random political thoughts)."

One of those five random political thoughts had a little something to do with young Vynette Fredricks, my favourite source of political comedy. To save you the trouble, I'll repost what I said then, in full:

RANDOM THOUGHT #1. “Whosoever diggeth a pit shall fall in it.”

So let me get this straight: Back in the election campaign, Gonsalves called Vinnie Vee a “tomboy” and made some tasteless joke that her dad sent a daughter off to school and got a son back in return. In another meeting, on another day in another locale, Gonsalves again took up the topic of Vynnette, saying she was too inexperienced to be a good representative (he used typically colourful terms like “force ripe” or “fluxy”). Now, during the “Fluxy” meeting, people in the crowd began chanting that Vynnette was a lesbian (I hear that truth is a defence to that kind of slander, but again, I digress). While the crowd chanted "lesbian" at that meeting, Gonsalves made no comment about her sexuality or made any tomboy innuendo.

But Vynnette, in complaining to the High Court about Gonsalves’ utterances, swore to an affidavit, which incorrectly claimed that the “lesbian” crowd comments were made DURING the TOMBOY meeting and not the FLUXY meeting. Why is this important? Because Vynnette claimed (and the court agreed) that it was the juxtaposition of the call and response of “tomboy” and “lesbian” that led to the unmistakable defamatory meaning of the Comrade’s picong.

Turns out that the Frank DaSilva, the guy who gave VinnieVee the copies of the tapes of both the “Tomboy” and the “Fluxy” meetings went back and listened to the tapes, and realized that ‘ole VinnieVee was pulling a fast one on the court. Which is a problem, because under Vincy law, that kind of oath-rigging is a criminal offense, and can land you in jail for 2-5 years.

Now I don’t think ‘ole Vinnie Vee deserves any jail time. She was just – as usual – a lil bit hysterical and over the top. But, by the same token, she shouldn’t be putting people in court for campaign picong. While Gonsalves was on one platform hinting that Vinnie was one dance step away from Chaz Bono, NDP candidates were calling Ralph a rapist, a money-launderer, and even a child molester (I heard it with my own two ears). Traditionally we suspend the laws of libel and slander in an election season. Vinnie didn’t honour that understanding, and now it might bite her in the ass.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive.

Here is my real question though: Assuming that Gonsalves had his usual high powered (and high priced) legal team of Anthony Astaphan, Grahame Bollers, Richard Williams and Rochelle Forde on the case, how come NOBODY noticed that Vinnie’s affidavit was bogus before the High Court ruled in the case? When Frank DaSilva is rescuing Ralph Gonsalves from legal drama, something’s wrong with your legal team, Comrade.

(VincyNostradamus rides again! Always happy to say "I told ya so")

Lawyers should read (and uphold) the law, no?

Now, lo and behold, the SVG Police have discovered sections 90-something thru 100-and-something of the Vincy Criminal Code, and 'ole Vinny Vee has found herself in the pokey (and not for the first time, either). The usual cries of political victimization and intimidation have cropped up, as you would expect them to when an opposition senator is arrested by the police.

But, everyone bawling about rough justice and political victimization/distraction needs to take a deep breath and look at the facts.

Vynette is a lawyer. An officer of the court. And she lied to the court. Repeatedly. In writing. Under oath. That's a crime. And if the court lets lawyers off for perjury, can it really punish John or Jane Citizen for fibbing in affidavits or sworn testimony? And if everyone is free to lie to the court, what kinda justice system will we really have?

Tony Astaphan, the Comrade's hired legal gun from Dominica, said this back in June:

“Although we won the appeal and the matter is now at an end, we are seriously considering raising the matter with the Director of Public Prosecutions [Colin Williams] because we think it must have constituted a criminal offence and we are also thinking very seriously of taking up the matter with the Attorney General with a view to having disciplinary proceeding instituted against Vynnette Frederick for that sort of behaviour . . .
"We cannot allow lawyers who are politicians or politicians who are lawyers to deliberately mislead the court in material aspects in order to try to score a victory in the court for political gain. It is for me an unacceptable crossing of the line."

(props to Kenton Chance for the quote).

Say what you want about Astaphan, but he was spot-on in this case. That's just crossing the line.

OK, you say. But did Vinnie Vee really lie; or are Comrade & Co. just spinning an honest mistake for political effect?

Well, let's not go by what the ULP and its operatives say. Let's see what the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court said, shall we?

"The evidence of the chanting of “lesbian” clearly influenced the learned trial judge’s decision to refuse to set aside the without notice order obtained by Ms. Frederick.  The evidence now is that there was no such chanting.  The judge was influenced by evidence we now know to have been untrue."

Hmm. "Untrue." Not a good word. But wait, there's more:

"In the instant case the judge found that the non-disclosure was material and intentional."

Damn. "Material and intentional." Not good words. Not good at all.

In other words, Vynette lied to the court ("untrue"), she lied about something important ("material"), and she lied on purpose ("intentional").

That's not Comrade & Co. talking, that's three non-Vincentian Court of Appeal judges. (And can anyone who's bawling "political victimization" please explain to me on which planet the ULP would consider Vynette a political threat? She lost her election convincingly in 2010, the NDP has announced that they will not run her as a future candidate, she was deposed within the NDP by Ernesto Cooke as the party's PRO, and she embarrasses herself in parliament on a monthly basis. She is a spent force. A faded flash in the pan. Why arrest her when she was already dying a natural and public political death?)

If you're an officer of the court, you can't go around telling blatant lies, about important matters, on purpose, to the court. You just can't. This isn't politics, this is the administration of justice.

The sad thing about this, is that it was all so avoidable. Vynette has it in her head that she can win elections in the courtroom. She took Luke Browne to court for some B.S. She took Ralph to court on some even smellier B.S. All this was initiated by Vynette herself. And she was so eager to win that she lied to the court. Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Live by the court, die by the court. Such a shame.

I still hope that she gets off with just a stern public scolding from the court. 'Ole Bayliss Fredrick won't last if his daughter is sent to the pokey for an extended visit. But she needs to learn some kinda lesson in common sense.

Hey! I wonder if anyone will try to take her photo while she's in the dock, and post it on Facebook, like she did to Luke Browne when she dragged him to court on some other made-up charges?

Colour me Red, White and Blue! (Maybe)

(Note: This is a reprint of a letter that I wrote to the Searchlight Newspaper a couple weeks ago)

In the coming weeks, all of us in SVG will be casting a wary (weary?) eye towards the pitched election battles in the United States, where Republicans and Democrats will ratchet-up their mudslinging, divisiveness and extreme partisanship in the lead-up to their respective political conventions and, ultimately, their November election.

But after reading last Friday’s Searchlight, I am heartened that I have found yet another example of why us Vincys are better than our American neighbours: because while Democrats fight Republicans in the USA, they live happily under one roof in SVG – in our newly-formed Democratic Republican Party!

Even better, the colours of the new DRP, as explained in detail by party-founder Anesia Baptiste, are red, white and blue! The same colours of the American flag! What can that be but a none-too-subtle dig at the land of Romney and Obama? Mr. President, YOUR red, white and blue is hopelessly divided. On the other hand, OUR red, white and blue is clearly a more perfect union!

After the democrat + republican + red, white and blue motif, I was hoping that Anesia would have made her party symbol some combination of stars and stripes, to evoke the old glory of America’s banner. But, maybe because the ULP has already appropriated the star, Anesia went a different route. According to the Searchlight:

“Baptise displayed t-shirts, which bore the symbol of the new party: a blue clenched fist over a red heart, with a white banner and the inscription “I Am A Democratic Republican”.

And that’s where I get a little lost.

All the party symbols allowed by SVG law. Where's Anesia's?

First off, while the whole heart-fist-banner thing makes for an undeniably trendy t-shirt (do I get one with my $2 membership?), it’s not the easiest thing to reproduce on a ballot paper. And, correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a law that prescribes exactly which symbols a political party can use in SVG? I thought that the Representation of the People Act said that only 9 Symbols were permitted by political parties: The bicycle, the car, the clock, the ship, the star, the telephone, the heart, the key and the dove.

Not a blue fist or banner to be found anywhere in the Act. (I thought that Anesia would’ve surveyed the list of 9 available symbols and chosen the dove – since it’s so evocative of religion and purity and martyrdom and all). Does that mean that Anesia’s party is illegal? Has the Government ALREADY begun its victimization of the DRP?

But that’s not the end of my confusion. You see, Madame Editor, Mrs. Baptiste has established herself over her short political career as an avowed anti-communist crusader, a modern-day Joe McCarthy. But her party’s chosen symbol is more commie than a Soviet Hammer & Sickle.

The heart, as we all know, has a political history in SVG. It was the symbol of the United People’s Movement, the only Marxist-Lenninst party in the history of SVG. The UPM was so communist that it drove “Comrade” Ralph Gonsalves off to form the slightly-less-leftist Movement for National Unity (whose symbol was the now-outdated rotary telephone – now adopted by the so-called Green Party of "Insane" Ivan O'neal).

Well, Anesia is a young lass, and maybe she didn’t know about the UPM’s adoption of the heart as a symbol of socialist revolution in SVG. Surely though, as our leading young anti-communist crusader, she would know the history of the clenched fist!

Since the Bolshevik Revolution, the clenched fist embraced by Mrs. Baptiste has been the most recognizable international symbol of leftist solidarity. It began its political life as the symbol of the communists in the Spanish civil war, who used it as a counterpoint to the open-palmed Roman salute favoured by the fascists. In the 60s and 70s, it came to our region as a symbol of the vaguely leftist Black Power movement, as well as the salute of the avowedly socialist People’s National Party in Jamaica.

Workers of the world, unite!

The only way that Anesia could’ve made a more socialist symbol is if the took her UPM heart, her Bolshevik fist, and somehow combined it with an MNU phone and a Labour star!

Maybe this is another stroke of the DRP’s genius: Maybe, Anesia is telling me that the DRP is a big tent, under which not only democrats and republicans, but also communists and anti-communists can find political joy and fulfillment!

Maybe.

Or maybe this multicoloured, multisymboled party that sends mixed signals with its mixed symbols is just all a bit . . . schizophrenic.