Faiuze Ali
DAVID GRANGER'S COWARDLY ACT IN NEW YORK
Guyanese – New Yorkers braved the colder than usual spring weather last Sunday evening in the streets of Queens, New York, where large sections of Guyanese have settled and the site of the People National Congress/Alliance For Change (PNC-AFC) Coalition’s fundraising activity. Converging on the site with attendees was a sea of protesters resolute in confronting the Coalition’s candidates, demanding answers for the ruthless political repression perpetrated on the Guyanese people.
Picketers were adamant in directing their outrage at the Coalition’s Presidential Candidate David Granger, retired army chief turned politician, alluded to his tarnished character and close association with Burnhamism and dictatorship for decades, stating that such malfeasance cannot be swept under the rug for political expediency, as the disgraced former member of the Peoples’ Progress Party’s (PPP) Moses Nagamootoo ‘s sermon on the mountain top avouch: forget the past, the scars from that dark period were superficial.
But the power intoxicated Nagamootoo, prime ministerial candidate, was in for a rude awakening from the protesters, whose memories of those dark days are pristine fresh and anxious to tell of their endured sufferings and forced departure from their homeland.
Upon his arrival at the venue, Nagamootoo pretentiously wanted his invited audience to perceive him as a brave soul who still commands respect and influence amongst Guyanese in the area. He was certainly delusional.
He ventured into the direct path of the protesters and suffered a barrage of blistering verbal insults and humiliation, while being shielded by paid security persons, who ushered him inside. The bewildered and emotionally shaken Nagamootoo barely managed to clinch a closed fist in the air as a sign of perceived strength but the false bravado was evident.
Nagamootoo’s new found political confidante David Granger, whose name was observed attached to a poster that read” Granger has blood on his hands,” had the same fate awaited him. Upon arrival in his SUV, Granger, who observed the protesters with numerous placards and banners in awe, cowardly refused to disembark his vehicle and forced the opening of a private back entrance to access the premises, refusing to face his fellow Guyanese compatriots demanding answers of his past.
Awaiting a back door entry, a stark –faced, seated Granger could be seen scanning the sea of protesters from his vantage point in his SUV, glancing at the endless placards, and posters reminding him of the many unanswered questions of his character and alleged involvement and knowledge of atrocities committed against the Guyanese people.
Amid the protesters’ messages were reminders for the retired army chief, his party and political allies that the killing of innocent Guyanese demanding their rights and votes to be respected; his refusal to testify at the Walter Rodney Commission; rigged elections; his refusal to account for the State weapons in PNC’s possession; and his repudiation that Indo –Guyanese are unsuited for the armed services, and racial and ethnic biases, tantamount to historical treasons. Those and answers to other substantive questions are illusive as Mr. Granger’s unwillingness to have a candid conversation with the Guyanese people.
Protesters took comfort in the fact that their collective effort in reminding the Coalition partners, political candidates, and particularly Guyanese at home and in the wider Diaspora of the brutality of Granger’s party regime, economic deprivation and discrimination, uttered in a loud and emphatic voice, that Granger’s character and credibility are damnable to say the least, with more unanswered questions of the candidate’s past, which he is intentionally running from to avoid being held accountable.
The painful memories, the physical and emotional scars of those dark days, shouted one senior protester, run deep. They are fresh as Moses’ mountain top sermon of turning a new page and wanting to rewrite the nation’s history to satisfy his insatiable appetite for power.
Granger, too, reading Nagamootoo’s redemption narrative and attempting to Three- Card Monte the Guyanese people, now claims that he is not Forbs Burnham, and not interested in promoting the ideals and philosophy of the party founder and dictator. Burnham has been dead for thirty years, and that is in the past, he purported to have said to his audience. But such pronouncement lacks authenticity and is used for public consumption.
Ironically, however, as the retired army boss discarded his party founder for political convenience, Granger, the flip flopper, seems to have selective amnesia of his annual pilgrimage, leading the faithful to the shrine of the party leader to pay tribute and homage to a repressive and dark past in the nation’s history, that sends shivers down the spines of ordinary Guyanese.
Contrary to Granger’s message, he has repeatedly demonstrated great affinity with embracing the past. Currently, his party’s leadership is dominated with former high ranking personalities from the uniformed services who served the regime well and are eager for the reign of power to resurrect their handiwork, a terrifying prospect indeed.
This recent protest exposes the clear and present danger of a resurrected PNC, disguised within the Coalition, lends itself to a broader conscious effort to confront the Coalition’s partners and combatting their deliberate distortion of history. Those “painful days are behind us; we don’t want those days to come back,” said a former democracy right activist who experienced the brunt of the repressive regime.
Faiuze Ali- Guyana Solidarity Movement-NY
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