Forward to the Past… APNU/AFC Vision
DREAMS die hard for the Grangers of this world, and so it is for the Retired Brigadier. Granger swore of his membership of the PNC during his military career when competing with Carl Greenidge for the leadership of the PNC.Somehow he felt the membership in the PNC was not incompatible with his oath as an officer of the GDF. I guess it would be too hard now to ask the General Secretary of the PNC to confirm whether indeed Granger had been a member of the PNC while in the military.
That might be too uncomfortable with the Dr. Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry breathing down his neck.
But the Burnhamite policies he now advocates point to his intellectual mentor. Like many Latin American Political Organisations, the APNU has increasingly become openly Military run.
Its leaders are formally Retired Military Officers and their Military minds are forever at work. Like Burnham, he, Granger craves power, but he has never acknowledged nor repented for his active support and participation in Burnhamite PNC Government excesses, and as he conducts his political campaign, Guyanese can see why his dream is to reintroduce these policies. His dream is to succeed where Burnham failed. Like Burnham, he embraces the military. He would discipline Guyana starting with the youths and their return to National Service.
Like Burnham, his planned Government would have the commanding heights of the economy and the Private Sector will know its place.
He plans to nationalise the privately owned and run Berbice River Bridge Company. Like Burnham, he has led APNU to embrace the Burnhamite political credo ‘All or None: Control or Destroy’.
He has used APNU in the entire 10th Parliament to delay, frustrate and prevent the development of Guyana. He was prepared to destroy Guyana’s gains if he could not get his way. Burnham held on to his policies and doomed Guyana. He died in office. It is a great pity that Granger’s dreams of Burnham policies did not die then too.
So today, Guyana is faced with an aged Burnhamite follower planning to plunge Guyana into the past, a past of failed policies, savage repression and loss of hope for the future.
Dr Roger Luncheon
Head, Presidential Secretariat
