Dominica's crab backs disturbance

It rained on Monday morning. That was the day the leader of the opposition, Lennox Linton, said he would deliver a package containing 500 signatures, a petition, to Benoit Bardouille, the Chief Executive Officer of the Discover Dominica Authority at the Woodbridge Bay Port in Fond Cole. It rained and rained and rained that Monday morning during the staging of another episode of Dominica's "crab backs disturbance".

It rained, as if the sky was weeping for Dominica, for our tendency to magnify small hills into Morne Diablotins, for our penchant for blowing a lot of hot air into small balloons of trouble until they threaten to explode in our faces.

As it rained on Monday morning, the Woodbridge Bay port was like a disturbed nest of ants, taxi drivers hustling cruise tourists, hordes of reporters seeking the next sensational story, dozens of police officers planning to prevent another simple protest. All this over the issue of a few crab backs.

The apparent problem was Bardouille's dismissal of security officer Vascort Jones of Marigot on December 10, 2014. A few days earlier Jones had asked Linton, the parliamentary representative for Marigot to produce a permit to be able travel to Antigua with a few crab backs; Linton did not have the required permit and so Jones asked Linton to return the crab backs to someone outside the Douglas Charles Airport terminal. Bardouille fired Jones for apparent gross misconduct.

"This is an act of political victimization, it is nothing more, it is nothing less," Linton told the press on Monday. "We consider this to be an act of savage political victimization."

Linton added: "We call on the Prime Minister to take the lead in this season of reconciliation, in this season of extending olive branches to have Benoit Bardouille show some goodwill and reinstate security officer Vascort Jones. It's that simple."