This is the first of our pictures of the world-renowned Usine, Ste. Madeleine sugarcane processing factory. Constructed in the 19th century, the Ste. Madeleine factory was the largest in the world at the time. It is also one of the oldest factories worldwide in active service. While the by-products of sugarcane, led by ethanol fuel, has created a boom in exports for countries such as Brazil and Paraguay, the axe falls on our own sugar industry.

The phasing out of Caroni began with Basdeo Panday quietly signing memoranda of understanding with the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) which stipulated large job cuts in Caroni as a conditionality for loans approval. Although Basdeo Panday seeks to disavow his responsibility with respect to Caroni's demise on the political platform, the loan agreements are presented on the IDB's website for everyone to see. You can find Trinidad's project details here. Additionally, a pdf file of one of the loan agreements for agricultural land reform can be found here. The latter loan agreement calls for a cut in 1200 Caroni jobs by 1998 just for starters. Of course, Panday could not risk dropping this news on the electorate at the time as it would have eroded the UNC base support. Perhaps Mr. Panday had assumed that his time in office would not have been cut so short by unlucky happenstance thereby depriving him of an opportunity to restructure Caroni. Irrespective of the latter possibility, the opportunity to divest and restructure Caroni under his tenure as Prime Minister had been squandered. Patrick Manning assumed the Prime Ministership leading a PNM government following a "moral" choice by the then President A. N. R. Robinson. Always eager historically to destabilise and disenfranchise the opposition base support, the PNM had no qualms about closing down Caroni completely. Possible discontent was ameliorated by voluntary separation packages doled out to workers. In the end, much of the blame for Caroni's demise has been deflected away from Basdeo Panday, but, as the IDB records attest, he is not absolved of guilt.

As all the IDB reports seem to echo, both the PNM and UNC governments seem unable to divest the economy away from a reliance on oil and gas, as well as an inability to restructure large enterprises to meet current global challenges. The PNM's mantra, for instance, seems to be one of closing down enterprises altogether rather than restructure and divest. Sadly, these easy solutions further undermine our goals for sustainability in the economy, and increase our reliance on imports.

Mr. Manning's remark which equated modern-day sugarcane labour to slavery is, naturally, erroneous and, indeed, insulting. There is no doubt that Mr. Manning did not mean to be derogatory but, nonetheless, making a career out of perennially putting his foot in his mouth at least affords people some entertainment when they are sitting in an emergency department for six hours waiting for attention, or when they cannot afford food.

And so, yet again, our history becomes, well, history. At least the Ste. Madeleine factory remains forever as a relic in our film collection.





- October 2007