President Anthony Carmona yesterday endorsed a proposal of mediation to resolve the dispute between the Highway Re-route Movement (HRM) and the government over the construction of the Debe to Mon Desir segment of the Solomon Hochoy Highway extension to Point Fortin.
Speaking at the Mediation Board's fifth annual symposium at the Hyatt Regency, Port-of-Spain, Carmona, without referring directly to the issue, said mediation offered participants a way-out to resolve disputes at all levels.
The HRM has turned to Carmona for help to end the dispute and he in turn has met with activists for and against the project. Earlier, head of the Mediation Board, High Court judge Vasheist Kokaram, called on all the parties involved in the dispute to engage in talks before it was too late. "It is troublesome and unfortunate that all the parties in the Highway Re-route Movement have not seen it fit to come around the table and panchayat. “It is a story which unfortunately has played itself out so many times in our courts with disastrous consequences for parties," he added.
Claiming that mediation was not just about settlement nor a means to an end, Kokaram said: "There is everything to gain by engaging in dialogue and everything to lose by posturing legal rights without considering the negative social impact which goes without remedy, falling within a black hole between law and equity. "It is a reality that state disputes are difficult to mediate. It is a reality that hunger strikers often expire without resolving their conflict. "We at the Mediation Board see this dispute as an opportunity for parties to grasp the positive growth and for devising mechanisms to deal with conflicts that would arise in the implementation of state projects."
Commenting on Kokaram's statements relating to the HRM and its ongoing dispute, Carmona said: "What he is telling you in no uncertain manner is that the folded-arm technique no longer works in governance. Our communities, businesses, families and our politics are all fertile fields for mediation."
Elaborating on the concept of mediation, Kokaram described it as a process which called for a deeper courage to sit with one’s perceived enemies and to deal positively with the destructive forces of conflict. “Often times,” he said, "when warring parties are encouraged to speak with one another to share their honest views on conflict, it throws up a process of compassion, empathy, cooperation and consensus."
He also sought to dispel the impression that mediation was a "giving-up of rights" but rather was one way which preserved the dignity of our existence, through co-existence.
