Freddie Kissoon – Credibility, image and dictatorship
As the days pass on in the rule of the PPP, your mind keeps going back to the reign of Burnham. It is hard to escape the memories of struggle in the Burnham era. But each memory is tainted with the bitter taste of history’s failure.
When one thinks about the lies and deceit that are overflowing from the corridors of power, the frustration mounts, because you knew back then that even the slightest violation of the PNC regime brought an angry reaction from society. In Guyana today, the most egregious mistreatment of the Guyanese people is greeted with fear and silence.
Forbes Burnham could not have done half of the things this present cabal is perpetrating on this nation without protest and demonstration. What has become of the people of this country?
Friday June 13, marked the 28th anniversary of Walter Rodney’s assassination, and it passed unnoticed. Yet, every year, Government resources are assigned to make the death anniversary of Cheddi Jagan a huge success.
There must be something deadly wrong about this country that each year in March you can read about the observation of Jagan’s death, yet nothing is done to celebrate the life and times of one of Guyana’s greatest heroes, Walter Rodney.
Of course, there isn’t much the Guyanese people can do about that. It is left up to the central authorities to mark the year of Rodney’s murder.
The PPP Government has not done it, and will not do it. One fundamental reason explains the PPP’s betrayal of the great things Walter Rodney stood for. In commemorating the life of Rodney and observing his death anniversary, the PPP would be exposing its political inanity, moral bankruptcy and historical failure.
Any public invocation of the memory of Walter Rodney highlights the prodigious role he played in restoring electoral democracy.
No discussion on what Walter Rodney meant to Guyana can be adequately ventilated without the hidden dimensions of the PPP’s failure as a political organization. It was Walter Rodney who single-handedly brought us to October 5, 1992. The PPP was just a mere footnote in that apogee.
Were it not for the WPA and Walter Rodney, Cheddi and Janet Jagan might still have been held up in Freedom House with their unlearned protÉgÉs denouncing American imperialism and chanting their pro-communist mantras. Of course, Mrs. Jagan carries on smartly in that vein.
Her Mirror columns are boring fulminations against American power, even pointing out that Guyana has free medical service and the US has none.
Just about six weeks before we got to June 13, the memory of Rodney was sullied by the deception of those who have inherited Burnham’s Constitution. Prime Minister Sam Hinds told the public that the reason the official inquest into Rodney’s death had not proceeded was because his family requested its suspension. The family quickly retorted, denouncing Mr. Hinds’s assertion.
The Rodney family unambiguously stated in their press release that there has never been such a position. They merely asked that the inquest not commence during the election campaign to avoid it being caught up in the throes of partisan politics which accompany any election.
To date, the man who saved Guyana, and died in the process, is yet to be officially given his rightful place in this country’s legacy. But look how flippantly his name is treated.
This is what I mean by the anger some of us feel when we reflect on the Burnham years. This Government can say and do anything and get away with it. Three unpleasant statements Mr. Hinds made, and they just went by without protest.
One is that we are not ready for opening up the radio spectrum. The same logic he extended to the Freedom of Information Act. Now the Rodney Inquest.
Mr. Hinds is not alone. President Jagdeo openly castigated Mr. Yesu Persaud in a manner that would have brought widespread anger against Burnham if he had done what Jagdeo did to Mr. Persaud.
Would we in the seventies have allowed Burnham to proceed with a deal like the Sanata divestment without taking to the streets? The credibility and image of this Government are dead.
No decent international observer of politics would classify the Government of Guyana as a democratic institution.
It gets worse with each passing day. All over Guyana, Burnham would have been given the most tempestuous tongue-lashing if he had flippantly dismissed the value of the Freedom of Information Act (FIA).
But look at the contemptuous language used to describe the advice of the Commonwealth Secretariat official who urged that Guyana implement its FIA. Guyanese were told that they shouldn’t listen to those who think they can come and lecture to us.
These are words coming from PPP leaders who begged the world to intervene in Guyana so we could have free and fair elections. The time for a Velvet Revolution in Guyana has arrived.
