WHY PEOPLE ARE FEARFUL OF APNU+AFC – THE PAST IS BEING REKINDLED BY PRESENT STUPIDITY

Despite call for people to forget the past, people do remember vividly what it was like to live under a dictatorship and are mightily fearful of APNU+AFC. What is daunting for APNU+AFC is that young people are equally fearful as older people. APNU+AFC had hoped that young people that were not born before 1990 would not have experienced those dark days when people were locked up and victimized for not pledging loyalty to the PNC, when people lost their jobs for daring to oppose the PNC and when heroes like Walter Rodney and Father Darke were slaughtered through centrally-directed murder plots. APNU+AFC also had hoped that young people who are a little older might not have remembered those days.

But many young people, whether they experienced those terrible days or not, have heard stories from their parents and grandparents and they know that their generation live lives far superior to those of their parents and grandparents. Many today own their own vehicles and live in homes with amenities that their parents could not have imagined. Most live in homes with modern accessories, like showers, micro-waves, fridge, TV, computers, etc. The young generation is far more educated, better trained and more widely traveled than any previous generation.

Young people and the population-at-large acknowledge that the PPP/C has not been perfect in government. But they acknowledge that Guyana is a far better country today. Young people today are far more proud of their country than any generation before now. At the same time, APNU+AFC seem intent, all by itself, on reminding the Guyanese people, particularly the young people, why they want the PPP/C to continue in government.

The lawless behavior of APNU+AFC supporters serve as reminders of those days when people were savagely beaten and even killed for standing up for their rights. When the Ballot Box Martyrs were slaughtered like dogs in 1973 for simply demanding that their votes be counted and today being called gangsters by APNU+AFC’s Presidential Candidate, people wonder if this is what we can expect from an APNU+AFC government.

When Guyanese freedom fighters and icons like Roger Luncheon and Gail Teixeira are insulted, threatened, pelted with broken bottles and rocks just because they dared enter a APNU+AFC stronghold, people remember the lawlessness of the PNC government when political activists opposed to the PNC were brutalized by PNC supporters, with tacit and direct support from the PNC. It is disgraceful that APNU+AFC supporters have throughout this election campaign terrorized PPP/C activists and leaders.

On Saturday afternoon, a group of APNU+AFC supporters tried to disrupt a PPP/C meeting in Edinburg, a mixed community. They taunted PPP/C supporters in attendance, tried to disrupt the speakers while standing some distance away and threw insults on those who were in attendance. When their efforts from afar did not work, they used a vehicle adorned with APNU flags to pass up and down the meeting, waving the APNU flag in the faces of the people. When this did not seem to impact on the meeting, they decided to send children wrapped in APNU flags to run up and down and ride bikes at high speed and screaming. Even if the heckling from afar and the use of a vehicle to distract people could be accepted as normal behavior, the use of children in this way is unforgiveable and total lawlessness.

During a PPP/C meeting in Warlock, Georgetown, a group urinated on the PPP/C flag. This vulgar behavior is disgraceful and is the very epitome of APNU+AFC lawlessness. Such crude behavior by a woman, urinating in public on a PPP/C flag is not merely distasteful; it is reprehensible and must be deplored by any decent-minded human being. It, however, is most repugnant because this is the kind of behavior that APNU+AFC promote among our children. Decent-minded Guyanese do wonder if this is our future.

During that same meeting, APNU+AFC decided to burn the PPP/C flags that they pulled down from the GPL poles in the area. Such disrespectful, undisciplined behavior should not be condoned by anyone. The fact that such behavior is regarded as normal by APNU+AFC frightens people, young and old. APNU+AFC has not yet come to realize that young people might not have lived through the terror when in the form of the PNC they were in government, but their present propensity to bully and intimidate people are viewed as a harbinger of what to expect from an APNU+AFC government. No matter what APNU+AFC promise, the behavior of their supporters and APNU+AFC’s reluctance to distance itself from such behavior constitute the most impactful reason why people are fearful of them.

Many persons around the country have revealed stories to us of what APNU+AFC supporters have told them – after May 11th, should the PPP/C win, there will be total chaos in the streets and in our communities. One thing is certain, many people believe them. There are people who are leaving the city for safer neighborhoods; some are even leaving Guyana before the elections to avoid the expected violence should the PPP/C wins the elections. No doubt, much of this expectation is not only driven by the history of the PNC in creating havoc after elections, but the recent behavior of APNU+AFC supporters provide enough bad memories to bring out extreme fear in people.

Contributing to the fear is the behavior of APNU+AFC supporters who have been attending the various rallies of APNU+AFC. They have travelled in convoys of vehicles from Linden, Georgetown, East Coast, West Berbice and other parts of the country, taunting people along the way. Many PPP/C supporters view the taunting and brazen waving of flags in PPP/C strongholds as threats and intimidation.

The call of APNU+AFC leaders for revolution, for protecting the polling stations, for surrounding polling stations, etc. that are constantly being made at APNU+AFC rallies and meetings contribute to the fear that people have. Even worse is the absolute militarization of the APNU+AFC leadership – a stark reminder of the army as the instrument of fear and intimidation of the people during the PNC dictatorship. This is heightened because many of the military and police personnel in the APNU+AFC leadership are from that era when the PNC used the army as its terror instrument. 
APNU+AFC believe that it can intimidate people into running away to places in and out of Guyana where they cannot vote in order to gain an advantage.

The truth is while they might succeed in cowering some, the vast majority of those who they want to intimidate are determined to stop them, in spite of fear. This is the downfall of APNU+AFC. The majority of Guyanese people still feel the pain and agony of a past APNU+AFC would very much like them to forget. People will use their pen to write an X to reject the possibility of APNU+AFC foisting another dictatorship on the Guyanese people.

DR. Leslie Ramsammy
May 3, 2015