The St. Kitts – Nevis National Flag
Bassaterre, St. Kitts – Nevis
June 11, 2009 (CUOPM)
St. Kitts and Nevis Prime Minister has commended scores of young people who took to the streets of Basseterre, to bring attention to the June 10th 1967 failed attempt by the opposition People’s Action Movement (PAM) to overthrow the lawfully-elected government of the Labour Party Administration of Premier Robert Bradshaw.
“Today, the young people have demonstrated yet again that they are prepared to understand the history of this country. They understand the history of struggle. They understand the history of survival. They understand the history of democracy and its growth and its flourishing in St. Kitts and Nevis, because while today, the people of Anguilla are celebrating with a public holiday, the young people of St. Kitts and Nevis are saying: “thank God they did not succeed here,’ said Dr. Douglas at the end of a Silent March Wednesday planned to educated young people on this dark event in the history of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Dr. Douglas said that the young people who staged the silent March may not have been alive today, if that assault on St. Kitts by the PAM terrorists on the morning of June 10th 1967, had succeeded.
“I commend the organisers of the silent march around town. I commend you for it is clear that you continue to read and understand where Labour has come from. Where Labour was in 1965 and 1967. You must understand it was as a result of the defeat of the PAM Party in 1966 that led to the attempt to overthrow the Bradshaw Government in 1967. You would understand what happen to this country in 1980 when the Government was eventually changed by the way of a Coalition. How the peoples’ rights were being trampled upon. How there was unleashed on this fair land, 15 years of vicious victimisation, where every single family in this country, can point to a member in that family, that was victimised by the PAM Administration from 1980 to 1995,” said Prime Minister Douglas, who was invited to address the large group of young people after the march.
“Look at where we have come from 1980 to 1993. Some people seem to think that the Labour Party and the people of St. Kitts and Nevis are ashamed of 1993. What is there to be ashamed of? Was there any attempt to overthrow the Government of Prime Minister Dr. Kennedy Simmonds by guns and bombs in 1993? No! The people demonstrated on the streets of this country time and time again expressing their disgust with a minority government that had been imposed upon them by a Governor General who has no respect for the people’s wishes and so the people demonstrated until eventually that demonstration gave way to the new elections in 1995 and democracy has returned to St. Kitts and Nevis. So what is there to be ashamed of? A revival and a reverse of democracy there is nothing to be ashamed of. In 1993, the people wanted democracy to return and it returned in 1995 and look where we come from in 1995 to today,” said Prime Minister Douglas during the rally outside the Labour Party’s Headquarters on Church Street, just steps away from his official office at Government Headquarters.