I was relaxing in my chair as editor of The Observer, a weekly newspaper that served the islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, when Saju N'Gallla, one of my star reporters, dashed in off the street.
'Quick,' he said, out of breath. "Riot! On Cayon Street.' He grabbed a camera and headed out the door.
The coffee was good, but it would have to wait. I followed my reporter to his car and climbed aboard.
I knew the sugar cane workers had been angling to be heard. They were all about to lose their jobs because of the economy. South America could prduce sugar cane cheaper than St. Maarten and Nevis, so 1,200 wrkers were going to be plunged out f work.
As we neared Cayon Street, the noise and bedlam became quite clear. We stopped the car a couple of blocks away and made the rest of the way on foot.
The street riot was taking place just a couple of blocks from the pink government place. It was next to casino that furnished slot machines but no poker for the patrons.
About 200 men had collected in the center of the street. Some brandished posters and waved them about. Others just sipped from beer cans or smoked island cigars. Some wore white teeshirts to show the rippling muscles made strong from doing field work for years beneath the hot Federation sun.
The workers seemed to be protesting the government's failure t protect the laborers from the competition. One had a large sign that read, 'WHERE WILL I FIND WORK?'
A street band of four musicians in Rastafarian garb strolled up and began playing. Some vendor, his arms loaded down with containors of bottles, worked his way through the crowd selling homemade liquor.
Charles, one of my photographers, stood next to the street vendor.
'Poker tonight?,' He said. I nodded 'Eight p.m. at the Marriott Hotel.'
A sugar cane worker wandered over to me. He was carrying a rusty machete in a scabbard. Tears were flowing down his cheeks.
'I have held my job for eight years,' he said, crying. 'Who will hire me? How will I support my wife and children?'
'The government doesn't care,' another worker said tiredly. 'It isn't their jobs that are being lost.'
I later had a private audience with Dr. Denzil Douglas, an articulate physician who held the government reins in his capable hands.
In the privacy of his office in the Pink Palace, I asked a blunt question: why doesn't his government legalize marijuana and beat the rest of the world to the punch? Marijuana is the world's number one cash crop and would put all his people to work at good paying jobs.
'I would love to do that, Geno,' he said. 'But if I did, the American government would brand me a drug trafficker and probably make St. Kitts and Nevis off-limits to travelers from the United States.'
I left the Caribbean two years ago. Jamaica recently legalized marijuana, also known as the 'blessed herb' earlier this year. A government spokesman said the legalizaton would spark a $5 billion increase in tourism.
Dr. Douglas is out of power. However, he and his political constituents are struggling to seize control of the government once again. This time there is talk circulating the islands about the legalization of this plant. Stay tuned for the news.
