An apology to Adam Harris but I still fear for my life
In July this year, because of things I had to do before I planned to leave Guyana for Trinidad, I had to contact by phone rather than in person, Mr. Nigel McKenzie who was acting for Adam Harris who was out of Guyana. I sent him three columns because I informed him I would be in the interior.
McKenzie found out I lied when it was made known that I was going to Trinidad with my daughter to attend her cousin’s wedding. Why did I lie? I was afraid of my daughter and I coming to harm at the airport because my landline and cell phone are tapped. I know this. Here is one example. Only I knew that I was going to arrange a picket exercise in front of the Ministry of Social Services.
Over the phone I told Leonard Craig to meet me there. At the picket site we would then call members of the Ghana Day Committee, 1823 Coalition for the Monument at Parade Ground and the People’s Parliament to join us. When I arrived the Special Branch were already there. Only one person could have told them that – Leonard Craig. I don’t believe he would. He is a comrade I trust and he is also a personal friend. They got the information from my phone.
There are other situations of graphic evidence of the tapping of my phone. One more description will suffice. I called Norris Witter, President of the TUC, to inform him of a picket I would lead outside of the office of the Ethnic Relations Commission and to join me. Only Norris I spoke with over the phone. I arrived first and two policemen were proudly perambulating the street outside. I don’t think for a moment, not a split second that they got the information from Norris. They got it from my phone.
I know my phones are bugged, so I would like to think the police know some of the incredible information that comes my way, including powerfully placed politicians who are engaged in all sorts of illegal capers, some of which I discuss on the phone with my media colleagues and personal friends.
I could not take the chance on my phone of revealing to McKenzie that I was leaving for another country. The honest, sincere feeling in my body is that I was afraid of physical harassment and bureaucratic victimization at the airport. Please, I implore of readers not to think I am chauvinist, but I do believe there is an obsession with me in dark corridors where State power is exercised in maddening ways.
On Monday last I sent Adam Harris four columns by e-mail (I am constantly changing my password) followed by a telephone conversation that I would be in the interior from Tuesday to Thursday. As with Nigel McKenzie I lied. One of the Guyanese I respect immensely, law professor Rudy James, told me when I was a UG freshman that lying is a bad thing, but sometimes it is a necessary. I withheld the truth from Adam Harris. I wasn’t going anywhere far from Georgetown itself.
I was heading for Balwant Singh Hospital on Tuesday to do complicated eye surgery (thank God such types of surgery can be done in Guyana) that the Georgetown Hospital does not offer and that the Ophthalmology Hospital in Port Mourant does not perform and even if both public institutions did, I would have refused.
I had this fear that if it was heard over the phone that I was to be hospitalized then maybe the long tentacles of the dark corridors would want to endanger my life. God knows I mean no insult to Balwant Singh Hospital, but the truth is I live in fear of my life. In August last year, I was attacked and struck repeatedly in a severe way at the back of my skull. Dr. Haydock Wilson recommended a brain scan. I did it days after and it showed nothing.
Eighteen months later I am enduring pains right in that area. I told Nazima Raghubir about the pain two weeks ago when she interviewed me for the Association of Caribbean Media Workers. In weeks to come I will take another brain scan.
I called Adam the next day (Wednesday), apologized and told him why I lied. In his inimitable style, he yelled over the phone. “Boy you paranoid, wuh bout me, I don’t tek no precaution, if they want, let dem kill me.”
Maybe I am paranoid, maybe I am foolish. But I am not taking any chances. I sense it, I feel it, I know it – that an obsession is there. I know how dictatorship operates. Not me, man! I’m staying with my paranoia. Once again, an apology to Nigel McKenzie, and a sincere one to Adam Harris and Balwant Singh Hospital.
