DO NOT DISTORT HISTORY
It is unacceptable that at the opening of a library highlighting the history of our country, history itself was being distorted and suppressed.
The Eric Williams Memorial Collection, Research Library, Archives & Museum was re-opened on Tuesday in Port of Spain, having been transferred there from the UWI, where it was first established in 1998.
At that opening, then Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, Erica Williams-Connell, and then US Col. Colin Powell opened the library, as the records and photographs will show. Then PNM Leader and Leader of Opposition, Patrick Manning, declined to attend.
In 1999, the Eric Williams Memorial Collection was named to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register. The Collection has been a great success, serving as a model and inspiration for similar such memorial collections at the UWI and elsewhere in the region over the past 24 years, preserving the legacy of our great writers and thinkers for future generations, at home and for the world.
Presently, at its relocation in 2022, however, no mention was made of the initial establishment of this world historic library under the UNC Government of Basdeo Panday. This is indeed tragic.
History must faithfully record all the facts and all the personalities, and not be distorted, altered, edited, or censored for partisan, ideological or other considerations. Doing otherwise is the destruction of truth itself. History has shown, ironically, that wherever this has been done before, societies have been led to ruin.
To add to this, there is an even further distortion and injustice.
At the 50th Anniversary of Independence, the Government of Trinidad and Tobago, under the Prime Ministership of Kamla Persad-Bissessar, declared that the old library would be a dedicated place of recognition for all the past Prime Ministers and Presidents of Trinidad and Tobago, and to archive material related to all these leaders.
However, the PNM, as is their destructive habit, wishes to exclude all other of our leaders from history and recognition. Indeed, one of the first acts of the new Rowley Cabinet in October 2015 was to re-purpose the old public library to house only the Dr. Eric Williams Memorial Collection and exclude all others.
The UNC rejects this.
The UNC re-iterates its position that the old library must house the documents and archives of all our country’s past Prime Ministers and Presidents. When the UNC returns to Government, it will do so, to include the country’s whole history of leadership in independence.
The PNM’s partisan distortion of our country’s history must not be allowed to continue. It is a slap in the face of the people of Trinidad and Tobago, for the nefarious purpose of PNM party paramountcy.
Dr. Kirk Meighoo
Public Relations Officer
United National Congress