Dear Editor,

THERE are happenings in our coalition government that sometimes give rise for discomfort and warrant criticism.

The foibles of senior administrators need to be brought to the fore so that they can be corrected, thereby, being faithful to the promises made by the President. The President has charted the proper course. His subordinates within the Cabinet and elsewhere need to scrupulously follow his lead or the path of righteousness and rectitude.

The police force now has a new leadership as part of a new dispensation. To achieve the above condition of absolute propriety, the police force is vital. The force must be like Caesar’s wife, beyond suspicion and reproach. His Excellency told this nation that the security of the State and the well-being of all citizens are of the utmost importance.

Ms. Teixeira saying things in the media that seem to ignore these fundamentals and seem forgetful of what took place when her party, the PPP ruled Guyana. When it comes to security and maintaining the morality of our society, only a Granger-led Government can give us such. I have no intention to advert to this and other related security matters, but felt compelled after listening to the fulminations of the PPP’s well-oiled propaganda machine.
I would have otherwise held my peace.

Some may have short memories, so let us be reminded of this: within a year of the PPP taking office in 1992, we saw signs of extra-judicial killings and murders that had signs of political directions or at best the turning of a blind eye to the horrors of the PPP’s 23 years.
Recall, killed in April, 1993 – Marlon Benn and Arjune Khemraj, the same year.

However, it was after Dr. Jagan’s passing in March 1997 that ‘all hell broke loose.’ Dr. Jagan’s sane and stabilising leadership was no more. For example, police deaths over the next period increased by a staggering one thousand percent (1000%). Strange but true.
We had an unabated spree of extra-judicial killings and the murder of over four hundred (400) young men, clearly superintended by the PPP regime.

No adult and no child should be exposed to this sort of behaviour.
Next, the PPP leader has not yet explained the role of Mr. Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan while they were in office. This is even after a full-page paid advertisement by Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan on Friday, May 12, 2006, where he publicly said he was in the business of ‘crime fighting,’ (sic).

Among the things he wrote, were the following absurdities
– “From the time the G.D.F started to play a role in Guyana’s crime problem in 2002 and now again in 2006, their only real target has been me, leading to my illegal arrest by the G.D.F in 2002 and the targeting of my business premises and persons connected to me, in 2006.

The timing of the request by the Americans for my extradition is no coincidence. It has coincided with a period of Guyana’s history when the country’s security is most at risk, and most vulnerable to a coup d’etat.”

Mr. Khan knew that extradition would have required the co-operation of the Guyana Government. He was confident this would not happen.

This statement by a known drug dealer King Pin, escaped the attention of the then government. Now, like Peter, some folks are denying the gentleman.
He, Khan, was not invited to explain where or how he possessed such resource. Khan openly chastised the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force.

Any credible government would have invited him to say how he arrived at his conclusions, etc.
It took the US Government to apprehend Mr. Shaheed ‘Roger’ Khan in a neighbouring country to have him brought to justice. A man who was operating freely in Guyana, apparently, heading a private enforcement gang.

Recall the sophisticated tracking equipment purchased in the name of PPP Minister, Dr. Leslie Ramsammy.

After, a deafening silence and evidence which was clear that the illegal equipment imported was cleared with ease was in his name, Dr. Ramsammy denies knowledge of this clandestine operation. He claimed that his signature was forged. Yet, there was never an investigation to find out who forged his signature or whose signature it was. A mystery fit for a paper-back novel, but Dr. Ramsammy is an honourable man and we must believe him; but the old folks taught me a truth is sometimes stranger than fiction.

I recall the deaths of Nigel Brown – 17th June, 1997/ Andrew Smith – 23rd July, 1997. Then we had the Minister of Home Affairs, Hon. Ronald Gajraj episode.
I spoke with one of his recruits, and later victim, George Bacchus and his brother Shafeek Bacchus. Bacchus before he was gunned down, expressed remorse and started to talk; this was his mistake. He was assassinated on Princess Street.

Before he was murdered, Shafeek gave a sworn statement to the US Embassy in Georgetown.
His statement identified the intellectual author of this sorry, sad saga.

Remember Axel Williams, a young man whose mother worked with me. All of her efforts to have him go straight failed. He was soon part of the Gajraj establishment.

Axel Williams, after the shooting to death of a food vendor because the vendor demanded payment for food he supplied to Williams, instead of being charged with murder, the minister had his firearm upgraded to a higher calibre weapon. That was the justice we experienced.

We had the high-profile cases of Inspector October, Ronald Waddell, Hon. Minister Satyadeow Sawh, the Lindo Creek Massacre and Courtney Crum Ewing.

We can remember Colin Mc Gregor, 14th November, 1999, Dexter Randolph, January 2000 and the list runs into hundreds of state-sponsored killings by squads who operated with a great degree of freedom.

The record of irregularities in the issuance of firearms by the PPP Minister of Home Affairs is well known.

This and other unsavory happenings may have led the Embassy of the United States revoking the visa of Minister Ronald Gajraj, as did the Canadian High Commission in Guyana.

In all of this, the PPP Leadership did nothing, instead, Mr. Gajraj was rewarded by being appointed our High Commissioner to India.

I could burden this letter with pages of similar instances, which suggest that whatever may be the weaknesses of the Coalition, and there are weaknesses I submit, that the next time Citizens are asked to vote, regardless of religion, race or class, they must avoid putting in to govern this nation, a group with such a tainted history and a known proclivity to disrespect Law and Order and human life.

When an administration shows scant regard for the fundamentals that secure a civilised society, then all of us, whether we live in Black Bush Polder, the Corentyne River, the North-West, Mazaruni, Cuyuni, the Rupununi, the coastal belt or our urban centres, we are all exposed to the wiles of State-sponsored gangs that cannot be controlled.

I read the news this week of a 26-year-old male placed before the court on 11 counts of armed robbery. No surprise, he was born in 1993 during the PPP regime and weaned and nurtured in an environment of violence and criminality.
We must avoid even the possibility of returning to that era.

Notwithstanding the above, I still feel our leaders should seek a form of unity to save our country and present a solid front to those who are experienced in the exploitation of small countries and people for centuries – imperialism, slavery, neo-colonialism, indentureship and mis-education are still hurdles we must get over quickly.

I write only because Ms. Teixeira and the Freedom House propagandist seem determined to misrepresent our recent history.
Regards
Hamilton Green