THE EDITOR: It is with extreme alarm that I read reports of temporary Senator Harry Mungalsingh’s contribution to a Senate debate on crime on Tuesday.

I call on all right-thinking persons to reject his recommendation that abortion and cash incentives for voluntary sterilisation be introduced as part of a national development plan to reduce crime in T&T.

Since he predicated his recommendation by referring to a specific ethnic group, one can deduce that this recommendation is targeted at a particular ethnic group.

Wade Mark’s statement that Mungalsingh was expressing a personal view and not that of the UNC is not good enough. As a mark of its displeasure and disagreement with Mungalsingh’s views on such a serious issue, I call on the UNC to revoke the appointment of Senator Mungalsingh forthwith.

To look for a solution to our crime situation in deliberate acts of destruction of human life is, as Bernard Nathanson says: “to trash the vast resourcefulness of human ingenuity.” This is no way to build our nation. Indeed, such suggestions will only serve to inflame ethnic division in our country.

I understand Mr Mungalsingh’s frustration at the Government’s inability to deal effectively with runaway crime in T&T. However, I wish to remind him of the dangers of the views he expressed and urge him to consider the sanctity and inviolable dignity of human life.

Mr Mungalsingh may not be aware of what goes on in places such as China, Mexico, Peru and India. Read about what Fujimoro did to urge more than 300,000 Peruvian women to ‘volunteer’ for sterilisation.

Read about Margaret Sanger, the American eugenicist, who established the infamous “Negro Project”. She said: “We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population…”

It was she who referred to blacks, immigrants and indigents as: ‘Human weeds’, ‘reckless breeders’, ‘spawning…human beings who never should have been born’.

Sanger was closely tied to Ernst Rudin, who served as Hitler’s director of genetic sterilisation. Sanger initiated the organisation called Planned Parenthood which today is the number one provider of abortion in America.

Since abortion was made legal in America in 1973 over 13 million African-American human beings have been aborted. It is the number one cause of death in that community. Do we wish to unleash this evil in T&T?

The criminals are already peddling their deadly agenda across our country. Let us not add to the culture of death by becoming peddlers of death ourselves. Instead, let us put our shoulders to the wheel to build a culture of life in T&T.
Leela Ramdeen, Attorney-at-law & Education Consultant via email

EDITOR’S NOTE: This letter was received via email, Wednesday, February 28, too late to be included in last Sunday’s paper.

DEAR EDITOR: The article by Fr Ian Taylor in the Catholic News of February 25 “The Challenge of Pentecostalism” is bordering on sensationalist propaganda.

The latest Vatican statistics confirm that the number of Catholics in the Americas is INCREASING (actually published in the Catholic News of February 18). The Central Statistical Office reported in the latest census that the number of Pentecostals in Trinidad and Tobago is DECREASING,

In the history of the Catholic Church there were a number of “isms” that have come and gone their way to dusty death. These include: Arianism, Gnosticism, Agnosticism, Pelagianism, Humanism, Atheistic Communism and more recently Secularism.

Perhaps Fr Taylor can explain the decreasing number of Pentecostals in Trinidad and Tobago and clarify to the reader the source of his statistical information.
Thomas Lall, San Fernando

THE EDITOR: I wish to take this opportunity to congratulate and thank publicly Sr Columba Byrne and Gail Barrat for the excellent books recently written compiled edited and published for use in Forms I and II in secondary schools.

I am at a loss for words to express adequately what we feel about them. They are just what are needed for these age groups, interesting, beautifully presented, full of information and variety. The facts and beauty of our religion are put forward clearly and methodically.

Any Catholic child should love to own and use such a text. Did I write “child”? Pardon the word; any Catholic parent, teacher or child regardless of age will find this text attractive and informative. It is tremendous asset for learning and teaching.

Sr Columba, we thank you and your team for the time and energy given to these texts. We look forward to Book III and others in the future
Sr Jean Devenish-Huggins, Port of Spain