RICE farmers should have the moral threads to speak out in the media about their plight and suffering in the industry like Mr. Indar Bacchus on the Essequibo Coast and other rice growing regions. Don’t farmers speak out anymore at public meetings with the Minister of Agriculture? Or have they all become silenced by their own selfish greed? I use this example because recently Mr. Bacchus, a rice farmer of the Essequibo Coast, spoke out, as he always does, like me, on some matters of concern he felt about mismanagement of the agriculture sector and his payment for paddy sold to a rice miller. Sad to say, he was the only person who apparently was affected by payment problems as many others just sat back and were voiceless at a time when their families are suffering.
Do prompt payments for paddy sold to millers bother only some of them? Are they afraid of victimisation if they speak out against the millers? Or they are scared that they will lose friends with the millers? It makes me remember the present society that we live in, where anything and everything is accepted. The going will get even worse. The fabric of principles is dying and the norms in our society will turn to ashes if they do not speak out against wrongdoings. In my tenure as a Field Extension Officer for the Guyana Rice Producer’s Association (RPA), men like Hamid used to attack the organisation for not representing the farmer’s interests. Today he is praising the government and there are many more like him who has reversed their positions on the RPA because they can now ride free on the organisation’s back. There is nothing wrong in changing one’s position on issues or about individuals, but he is dead wrong about Indar Bacchus freedom of speech; after all the farmer’s family is suffering and he cannot live without money while the millers are having a free ride on this economy. I remember when we were struggling for the restoration of democracy, very few assisted us and comrade Ali Baksh knows this too.
We were a lonely bunch of visionaries out in the streets putting up a fight for the dignity of the PPP and the Guyanese nation, but receiving little public support. Very few wanted to hear about the RPA and the PPP like Mr. Hamid. Money was hard to come by for the sustenance of both the PPP and the RPA. We were begging for donations to run these organisations and print literature to distribute to the public about the situation we faced in Guyana during the dictatorship.
Today, I am sitting in a wheelchair because of a motorcycle accident on the job with no friends around me anymore. People did not want us around them for fear of victimisation; we were seen as a lonely bunch of losers. Well, as long as I am Mohamed Khan, I was trained with the Guyana Agricultural and General Workers’ Union (GAWU), the strongest trade union in Guyana, as a Field Secretary under Mr. Komal Chand. I will speak out when I see wrong being committed and injustices towards my fellow human beings.