Jagdeo dares Granger to ‘come clean’ –‘Deal with major questions hanging over your head’
A week ago, Brigadier (rtd) David Granger was called upon to come clean with the Guyanese people on several major issues, particularly the people of Whim, in Region 6 (East Berbice/ Corentyne) where his party took its rally last Sunday.To date, those answers have not yet been forthcoming, and in an exclusive interview, former president, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who made the call, again questioned Granger’s reticence to answer the questions of rigged elections, missing guns and Dr. Walter Rodney’s assassination.
Opposition Leader David Granger
“You cannot jump to a present-day reality, including matters of security, when you refuse to deal with major questions hanging over your head at a time when you are asking the Guyanese people to repose their confidence in you and elect you to the highest office in Guyana,” Dr. Jagdeo contends.
PRESSING QUESTIONS
The death of Dr. Rodney is currently the subject of a public Commission of Inquiry (CoI), which has held hearings where evidence given implicates the former People’s National Congress (PNC) Administration.
At the CoI, last August, Lieutenant Colonel Sydney James, who spent three days on the witness stand, testified and submitted documentation that the GDF loaned high-powered military weapons to the PNC’s Ministry of National Development. The records that Lieutenant Colonel James tendered as evidence to the Commission show that the GDF loaned 200-odd weapons to the Ministry, as well as paramilitary organisations and other agencies. Of those 200-odd weapons, 155 are still missing today. Even as calls have been made for answers to be given regarding missing weapons, the current Administration insists that the Army is actively engaged in trying to locate them.
Dr. Jagdeo told the Guyana Chronicle that the importance of this question extends to the fact that some of the missing weapons were found in the hands of criminals during the 2002-2006 crime spree that wreaked havoc on the nation.
Relative to rigged elections, the former president pointed to the lives lost protecting ballot boxes, the lives of young men in Corentyne, where APNU+AFC took its campaign to appeal for the support of people there.
Jagan Ramessar, 17, and Bholanauth Parmanand, 25, were shot by soldiers at No. 63 Village, Corentyne, during the 1973 elections, while peacefully protesting the illegal removal of the ballot boxes from the place of poll at the end of voting.
“Mr Granger is hiding from all these issues; he has refused to deal with, consistently, three questions that have been posed to him on several occasions,” Dr. Jagdeo said.
COME CLEAN
On that note, he stressed that the APNU+AFC leader needs to “come clean” on questions that ought to be answered.
“Granger needs to come clean and say what he knows. If the reason for his refusal that he was directly involved? Was he the man directing the show? He hides from all these issues,” the former president said.
He added that the presidential candidate for the Alliance of A Partnership for National Unity and the Alliance For Change (APNU+AFC) military background is a matter of public record.
Jagdeo said, “He was in the army as commander and a national security advisor in the PNC (People’s National Congress) era. When he became the presidential candidate, he talked about coming home to the PNC after 40 years of membership.
“So in being a PNC member and one of the top leaders in the army, he had to know about the guns that were given to the PNC, he had to know something about Rodney’s killing and he had to know about the theft of ballot boxes.”
The former president contends that the Guyanese people on May 11 will make a decision about the future of Guyana and deserve answers to their questions.
The upcoming polls are being seen as the most significant General and Regional Elections since 1992.
By Vanessa Narine
