Dear Editor,
FINALLY, the Local Government Commission has become a reality. It is another of the coalition’s A Partnership for Unity+Alliance For Change (AFC) manifesto promises that have finally been realised. Yes, it did take a while, but it did not come into being because of the daily ad that the Stabroek News ran on the front page.

Editor, I observed the Stabroek News publication being able to carry out its mission of reminding the government of one of its campaign promises. Well, it is its democratic right to do so, as after all it is now publishing in a democratic society, without fear of reprisals.
Remember how the Jagdeo regime was choking the life out of this publishing house because they were not playing ball, as they fawningly did, from 1992 to around the mid-2000, from which time they apparently became convinced of the undemocratic ways of the then People’s Progressive Party/Civic(PPP/C) government.

Where was its voice during those years when the subject of the Public Procurement Commission was a very topical issue? Why did they not do a similar daily, public service advisory reminding the Jagdeo cabal that because of the absence of this commission, it afforded the PPP/C government the perfect cover to award very lucrative contracts to their friends and cronies, thereby causing a playing field that was glaringly not level?
Recall the now infamous and disrespectful tossing over the shoulders of a court order by the now late Janet Jagan? In any jurisdiction, that would have attracted unanimous condemnation by any media, as being contemptuous of the country’s laws. Stabroek News was deafeningly silent.

In fact, its late founder and publisher David De Cairies, when asked as to the non-criticism by the paper, publicly said that he thought it best not to criticise Mrs. Jagan’s action, because of wanting to give the government a fair chance of consolidating its democracy. Subsequent events were to have proven him incorrect, causing him and some staff members to protest in the vicinity of the CARICOM Secretariat, over Jagdeo’s decision to withdraw government ads from the Stabroek newspaper.
It is always my belief that no media ought to get into bed with any government. This should not remove its right to support its particular political party. However, it has a duty to be fair and balanced in its reporting and analysis of situations, and performance of governance; and not be convenient in its pronouncements.

Stabroek News has always been a right wing media, ostensibly representing and promoting the business class of this country. Of course, this publishing house was aware of the not-so-long-ago deliberate hoarding of foreign currency by a certain commercial clique, politically inspired, in attempts to undermine the coalition government. I never read any article in its pages warning of this attempt at economic sabotage.
It has an ethnic bias as well, as exemplified by, again, its silence over the desecration of the Rule of Law during the phase of the now notorious period of the Target Special Squad or black clothes police, that brutally shot down unarmed black youths. The cold- blooded execution of the three youths on Mandela Avenue is a case in point.
Some of its editorial staff, and a senior editor at that time were known to have expressed the well- known view “that the police must do their job.” I will credit Dr. Henry Jeffrey, at the time a PPP/C cabinet member, as being perhaps the first person to begin his public concerns in the Stabroek News letter columns over what was seen as a decided State policy of shoot to kill.

Many years ago, I recall a then opposition, People’s National Congress/Reform Member of Parliament, now a current member of the government, opining that no matter how credible the suggestions his party had made – it never found favour with the Stabroek News.
The same pattern is continuing with the coalition government of which the PNC/R is the senior partner. Reading the Stabroek News many editorials especially, there is this consistent view that the coalition should perform miracles, particularly with fulfilling its promises, and that it has not done anything of note since its assumption of office. This kind of jaundiced view can only occur in this type of nation that is ethnically divided.
It was an insult to the intelligent of this nation, the objective thinkers, when the political opposition began demanding of the government, measures which they as a government had ignored, when they had the time and the resources to do so. Stabroek News, through its editorials, supported this opposition line. How poor, for a supposedly respected publication house. No more though, for a significant part of the readership have finally seen the abject duplicity in its outlook.

Who would have thought that GuySuCo was in such shocking state with the announcement that it had been bankrupt? Look at the billion-dollar sums deferred to this industry, at the expense of other sectors – education, the police force, medical professionals, just some of the sectors, which workers justly deserve better financial emoluments. How can this media house seek to criticise government over the wages issue with the Guyana Teachers Union, without taking into consideration the huge billions poured into the GuySuCo abyss?
Further, does it comprehend the damaged and dislocated, morally degenerate state, politically, socially, and economically, with its criminally corrupt infrastructure that is continuing to pose a threat to the good efforts of the coalition government?
Where is this journal’s opinion on the shameless efforts to defeat the course of justice as clearly exemplified by the Guyana Bank of Trade and Industry’s (GBTI) refusal to cooperate with the Special Organised Crime Unit(SOCU), and even blatantly disobeying the High Court’s Productive Orders? On which side of the law does it stand?

I note the indecent haste to remind the nation about rigged elections of the past, leading the bogey gang; but were silent on the shameful attempt by a former Chief Elections Officer Gocool Boodhoo to deprive the AFC of a seat in 2006 and when he deliberately set about to concoct and rig calculations that would have given the then PPP/C a one- seat majority in the 2011 poll. Thank heavens that an astute GECOM Commissioner, Vincent Alexander exposed the fraudulent attempt.

What is now very clear is that the Stabroek News columns have become a haven, and a sanitiser, for some known political criminals, inclusive of the racist cabal. There is a particular former high state functionary, who attacked and threatened a popular, private print house, even trying to solicit a sexual favour for a relative.
He is now given place of prominence in your pages. Where else could such a media profanity occur, except in Guyana. In any other country with proper social morals, he would have already become a definite footnote, consigned to infamy. Such persons are never allowed to return to perpetrate indignities on the public. Again, principle being trodden underfoot by this media house.

Editor, I must state this; there is a racist campaign against the government, of which the Stabroek News is a central part. The problem has to do with the fact that the executive is African-led. But this must be respected, as it is natural, given that its mass party, the PNC/R as part of the agreed coalition, emerged with the highest number of seats. This was not an imposition by the largest component; it was an agreed structure as spelled out in the Cummingsburg Accord, and must therefore be respected.

What Stabroek News as a media house should be reminded, is about their role in seminally assisting the PPP/C to emerge as a criminal government that trampled our laws, disregarded the Guyanese people, and oversaw the systematic loot of the country’s resources, transferring same to one section of the Guyanese nation.
It truly boggles my mind, but I am not surprised that Stabroek News is contributing to further racial and political divisions in our society. I am reminded of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar about reason: O Judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts, and men have lost their reason!’ Good sense and reasoning are being buried to further their sinister political agendas.
Earl Hamilton