These are the Messages the Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago CHOSE to release on the occasion of our Nation's 64th Independence Day Celebrations
GOD HELP US ALL!
64TH INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE TO THE UNC FAMILY FROM UNC LEADER KAMLA PERSAD BISSESSAR.
PRIME MINISTER'S INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE WITH UNC FLAG - FULL TEXT
64TH INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE TO THE UNC FAMILY FROM UNC LEADER KAMLA PERSAD BISSESSAR.
On our 64th anniversary of Independence, I write this message to specially acknowledge the most important people to me, the UNC family. I say thank you for the honour of leading our great party and country. I love each one of you, and I will love you all till the day I leave this life.
Today we acknowledge our mothers and fathers, grandparents and great-grandparents, and the suffering they endured in the lagoons, cane fields, and oilfields to give us a fighting chance pre- and post-independence.
We remember that our membership was born of people mired in poverty who, at times, survived on salt and rice, while drinking water from ponds and springs. Sometimes eating one meal a day to make the sacrifices needed to educate us in cowsheds and church annexes.
They fetched water in box carts and bull carts, used flambeaus for light, had no healthcare, possessed one outfit of clothes for going out, and usually had to walk or ride a bicycle for miles in the sun or rain to reach any government service. They were objects of ridicule and hatred in this country for years under the PNM, post-1962 Independence.
Yet over 64 years, they fought to educate their children to ensure that we owned our rightful place as equal citizens in this country. We must keep working for our sons and daughters to qualify themselves to have better lives than ours. We must never stop learning, working and improving. You must strive to be owners and entrepreneurs, not simply satisfied with being workers or living on state welfare.
We must also have love in our communities. Greet the day with love, for it is the most valuable key to success. Never allow your heart to become small and bitter; rather, share it, and it will grow and warm everyone and everything around you. While I encourage you to live with love in your heart, I also say do not crawl on your belly for anyone. It's either peace or total war, nothing in between.
More than just a party, the UNC is a belief system rooted in the spirit of resistance, freedom, equality, justice, unity, hope, and faith. It is a spirit that lived in our poor, marginalised ancestors, yet who never allowed themselves to fall by the wayside.
This is why the leadership of our party must never fall into the hands of weak men and women; finesse and diplomacy must be backed up with steeliness and savagery when required to defend the UNC membership. A UNC leader must never allow our party to be hijacked by the local drug mafia and the fake eat-a-food elite as happened to the PNM.
I am honoured to be your leader, and I am committed to working tirelessly to ensure your voices are heard and our nation moves in the right direction.
I am Kamla Persad Bissessar,
the Proud leader of the United National Congress.
Happy Independence Day, UNC - United National Congress.
KAMLA PERSAD BISESSAR INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE TO TRINBAGO: "Stop blaming colonial past for T&T’s problems"
PRIME MINISTER'S "COLONISERS" INDEPENDENCE DAY MESSAGE - FULL TEXT
Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar says Trinidad and Tobago must take responsibility for its post-Independence failures instead of continuing to blame its colonial past.
In her Independence Day message on Sunday, Persad-Bissessar said the country had failed to build on what she described as a strong foundation left by the British in 1962.
“We must confront our post-independence history with honesty and acknowledge that we should have done much better over the past 64 years,” she said.
She noted that Trinidad and Tobago had a higher per-capita income than countries including Japan, Singapore, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Brazil and China at Independence, but said all had since surpassed the country.
She also pointed to the country’s established oil industry, agricultural sector, railway system, legal structure and low crime rate at the time.
“The fact is that the British left us a very prosperous functioning country in 1962,” she said.
Persad-Bissessar said it was now time to accept responsibility for decisions made since Independence.
“After 64 years, it’s time we grow up and stop blaming our problems on our colonial past,” she said.
She called on citizens to put Trinidad and Tobago first and move forward with “conviction and accountability” to create a stronger, safer and more prosperous nation.
