Give Honour Where Honour is Due- the Life of a Former Prime Minister

(Continued from issue of October 30, 2018)

The demise of supporters of the original Labour Party is mystifying in the manner in which they, the members, leaders and supporters island-wide were subjected to the high jacking of their party and placed in the back seat except a few with pubic profile for effect, whilst the front line advocates of the historically opposition Freedom Party and supporters in all communities suddenly arose as the new face of Labour and became more passionate and influential in extolling the virtues of, and benefiting from, this Labour Party, skillfully referred to as New Labour.

New Labour, claiming to owe its beginning from O.J Seraphin had embarked on a strategy of the elimination of the connection of Labour to leader P.J and later O.J in the historical context of the LABOUR PARTY.

The prominent Labour supporters and grass root leaders like Terry James and Dr. Alex James, highly qualified intellectuals died without recognition, as does former Mayor of Portsmouth Brewster, qualified children of N.A.N Ducreay and Flossie Joseph as well as other members of the Douglas family and many others expired on the altar of New Labour whilst prominent members of the Eugenia Charles Freedom Party rose to highest prominence at all levels of State authorities . (More on this later publication).

The silence on these past political intrigues achievements and challenges of Government of P.J and or O.J by current historians is an enigma but is an indictment which speaks volumes of intent to reinvent and obscure truth and history in an effort at the recalibration of history which today is called fake news or alternative truth .

The rationale of a book on the past leaders and roles and functions of former Presidents and Prime Ministers by attorney Alick Lawrence was motivated, he said, by his awareness that the names of past leaders were blurred and the younger persons have remained ignorant of the past . This, of course, was by conspiracy of the effort of pundits, where history was vague and non-transparent, where historical factual documents and tapes of radio and TV appearances of government events at government institutions were destroyed and leaders being ignored as inconsequential persons whose contribution to nation building were assigned to mere marginal small print thus restricting knowledge to the incoming generations.

Indeed the O.J. Seraphin's Government was the facilitator of the official license to Ross University Medical and Veterinary School at Portsmouth, Dominica. It is sad that after decades the University elected to go to Barbados in July 2018 following damages to the residencies by Hurricane Maria.

The University was originally initiated as an experiment at rooms in Castaways Hotel - on the Dominica west coast -with a few students under the Patrick John Administration in 1978 of which pretenders to that legacy were not then in government!

There have been efforts to distract and impose a false narrative on the inception of Ross University seeking to grant and claim bragging rights without factual evidence. These claimants to this legacy were not in the Patrick John Cabinet at that time of the Ross earlier experiment at Castaways Hotel for a medical school in 1978 or indeed led the O.J. Administration which Government followed and granted the license to Ross in 1979 for the medical and veterinary school.

Dr. Ross, the founder, through his local agent -Babs Clarence Butler, sought the location of the new veterinary and medical school at Melville Hall- the area of the airport manager and surrounding lands, due to proximity of the airport, hospital at Marigot, beaches, two large villages-Marigot and Wesley- etc.

However, it was promoted that Portsmouth where Butler had arranged property for the school as well as the land availability due to the Government acquisition of Picard lands from Geest as well as the need to reciprocate for the historical support of Portsmouth to Labour received formal acceptance under the government of O.J. Seraphin in 1979.

The veterinary school of Ross University which was not in the early Castaways arrangement with Premier John which was confirmed with O.J was however lost and transferred to St. Kitts due to the very hostile environment with the incoming Freedom Party administration in1980 which led to its closure. (To be continued)