I arrived at the scene a few minutes after the explosion to a chaotic situation, persons screaming some writhing in pain while others hurled expletives; listen to some of the comments “Is a coolie man gee he da ting and the Black jackass get blow up. Black people real stewpid eh” Another comment went thus “Is lang now deh want fuh move weh from de square so deh give de fool de grenade fuh blow weh up” and the final comment “dat ting was to kill all dem mother f**ers in parliament because deh screwing up Black man in dis country” The final statement caught my attention and I wish to comment. While a statement of this nature would easily emanate from the lips of an opponent of the present regime, certain chosen words that are not common to the local vernacular lends credence to the fact that a local foreign synchronisation is at work. Isn’t it strange something of the nature of a grenade should suddenly fall from the sky to find itself in the hands of a junky called “American” or stranger still a phantom must have hurriedly placed that grenade under the cigarette stand. These are pointed questions that need urgent answers.

Picture the situation that should have taken place on that fateful day, here we have a man transporting a deadly device perhaps meant to kill mainly the government Members of Parliament while (certain members of the opposition are conveniently absent) this man would have found himself around Parliament compound as a harmless junky just walking around waiting for that opportune moment to detonate his weapon of mass destruction blowing the intended target to bits. Minutes into the carnage as the dead are taken to the morgue, the main opposition leader accompanied by the Official of a certain foreign mission would be on the airwaves using language such as “Guyana is ungovernable there is no functioning government at the present moment. We call on this nation’s citizens to be calm, however, we must court the opposition in a power sharing national front government for peace and stability to return to this great country” end of news clip. This foreign mission would have once again succeeded in achieving its goal for Guyana, that is, to get the PPP/C Government out of office and Corbin would have gotten what he so long dreamed of, power. The situation that should have been is reminiscent of Guyana in 1964 when chaos and confusion reigned in this country and the PPP government was forced out of office by subversive means. January 5, 2011 attack bears striking resemblance to that of the 1960’s when incendiary devices of a similar nature were set off at various locations in the city creating that all too familiar sequence of events. What befell Cheddi would have been the fate of Jagdeo’s government as well.
Let’s not fool ourselves this is an election year and a defining moment for the main opposition’s Robert Corbin. The PNCR’s camp is terrified of another electoral defeat hence plans are afoot to derail the entire democratic process and to try force their way back into power by means they all know best, violence. But as the Almighty who still rules in the affairs of Guyana would have it their plans went badly wrong, one of the reasons being the almost ubiquitous police may have thwarted his advance to the parliament location forcing him to beat a hasty retreat by the cigarette stand.