PLEASE allow me to express my concern at recent events where a senior figure of the AFC’s leadership seems to have taken over the mantle from the PNC in aligning himself and party to proponents of radical politics in this country.

I am referring to AFC’s co-leader Khemraj Ramjattan who was highly visible in the efforts of securing of bail and subsequent release of Mark Benschop and company in their recent protest action. It is interesting to note that the main opposition party, the People’s National Congress whose members include a number of prominent lawyers including Basil Williams and Deborah Backer, to name a few, was glaringly absent from efforts to secure the release of Benschop and company.

The AFC’s promise of a breath of fresh air in the suffocating political atmosphere of this country at the time of its launching was warmly welcomed by many, however we are now left to wonder if recent events are signalling a departure from AFC’s promised political modus operandi to a more confrontational and radical political agenda.

I have noticed that Mr. Raphael Trotman, co-leader for AFC, recently stating in the press that his party has taken over as the main opposition party for this country, displacing the PNC. I only hope that he wasn’t alluding to the ‘slow fyah mo fyah” politics which was adopted by the PNC as part of its political arsenal to mount pressure on the PPP in their bid to force the government from power.

The subsequent criminal upheavals that this country then suffered over the number of years as a result of this type of politics has resulted in a number of innocent men, women and children being slaughtered by “freedom fighters” who received tacit and open support from many leading opposition figures and is considered a direct result of the “slow fyah mo fyah” policy which helped embolden criminals in their ‘cause’. Let us not forget this.

Mark Benschop, rightly or wrongly, has been associated with this type of politics- a politics that instigates fear in a large constituency of this electorate, a fear associated with demonstrations, beatings, fires, thuggery and racially motivated attacks and any perceived alignment with him is bound to do more harm than good for any self respecting organisation.
MARTIN GREAVES