CHRISTMAS TODAY FOR BOBO SHANTIS

Bobo Shanti Rastafarians will celebrate their Christmas today. One of
the elders of the religious sect, Priest Nyah, said the 500 members
of his commune at Wharf Trace, Maracas, St Joseph, will mark the
"birth of the Earth" with fasting and prayers from 6 a.m. to noon,
followed by an evening of song and celebration.

The commune, which is part of the Ethiopian Black African
International Congress, has been in existence since 1984, and the
compound includes a church, living and eating quarters, a school and
a conference room.

The women make nuts, belts, bags, badges and jewellery for the men to
sell. There are 10,000 Bobo Shantis scattered across Trinidad,
according to Nyah, who spent eight years in Jamaica, at the Bull Bay
headquarters of the Congress. He also had a message for Trinidad and Tobago.

"The Bobo Shantis blast Trinidad and Tobago," he declared.

"This place is now Sodom and Gomorrah spiritually...The government
needs to ban women from wearing pants to curb the crime. They say
they don't know how to curb crime -that is the first step. The women
need to cover themselves up... Is that causing rape and all this setta crime."

Nyah renewed the eternal Rastafarian call for the government to
decrease the penalties for marijuana possession.

"Gih we ah chance wid ah ounce at least," he said. Fellow elder
Priest Erasto Njoko Jawanza went further to state that the plant
should be legalised.

"This is a natural tree," Jawanza pointed out. "They legalise
cigarette, alcohol and hemp, so why not the herb? The government has
to deal with equality and justice for all. They should ban the rum
and legalise the herb."