Reply to "Not in this land of Berbice…not this time…."

It was a Saturday morning, June 30, 2012, just over a year ago. I had gone to bed the night before at 7.30 pm, never so early as far as I remember. I opened one of the partially read books at my bedside but could barely concentrate. My wife, Janet, joined me at 9 pm, said nothing, went under the sheets and pretended to go to sleep.

But I knew that sleep would not come to her as long as I was awake and in distress. I knew that during the night she would awaken about every hour and check if I was breathing. I turned off my night light at about 11 pm. She turned around, embraced me and I fell asleep. 

I had come home unusually early the afternoon before from the Party Executive meeting. When I was about to leave home at midday for the meeting, Janet pleaded with me, as she often did in recent years, not to lose my temper. I had been on a short fuse for quite a while because of the increasing attacks to which I had been subjected at these meetings. Janet felt that an article I had recently written in which I said that there was pervasive corruption in Guyana might elicit some hostile comments. She feared that I might be tempted to respond.

I did not expect any, but the hostilities had been planned and were expertly executed by willing and practised hands. I endured them, expecting to respond constructively. But as they were ending, I was gratuitously and irrelevantly accused of being untrustworthy. After forty years in the leadership of the PPP, such an accusation was about as much as I could bear