‘When a man puts on a character he is a stranger to, there’s as much difference between what he appears, and what he is really in himself, as there is between a visor and a face’ -Bruyère
PUT into local context, and with a name, the PNC presidential candidate, David Granger, is, as Bruyère says, just another grey-looking mouse.
David Granger retired from the military service in 1992. Now, after almost two decades of silence, he rises again, in the form of the presidential candidate for the People’s National Congress Reform. Questions then must not only be fraught, but be relentlessly directed at this ‘apotheosized presidential hopeful’. And guess what? It is incumbent upon him to answer.
First, when this august retiree keeps denying any involvement in the military operation (Burnham’s PNC directed) during the 1973, 1980,1985 general elections, he is not just issuing a venial comment. This is not a mere peccadillo. Also, if being tacit and evasive is an attempt to practise some kind of sophistry, where ‘silence-equals-innocence’, it is lamentable at best. That infamous and heinous ‘operation’ resulted in the deaths of two men at No. 63 Village, and with it, the engendering of morbid terror across this land of ours.  . So, the magnitude is immense.
David Granger, then, must not be allowed to prevaricate on this (one of many) evil. The charlatan keeps reiterating that the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) was at the time only seeking to prevent ballot boxes from being seized.
So, the “I had nothing at all to do with the shooting” since he was not ‘boss’ cannot suffice, and will not wash. This is tantamount to exonerating cohorts of Satan in Milton’s Paradise Lost.
And, by the way, this clears the way for President Bharrat Jagdeo to be beatified, since it is not he himself who is the perpetrator of the seeming evils he is accused of doing.
Whether or not David Granger was in command of the GDF at the time is irrelevant. The fact is very clear that he was a major contributor to the melee. He offers:  “I was in command of the base at what used to be Atkinson Field, what became Timehri. So, I was not in charge of seizing any ballot boxes. I was not in charge of the operation.”
And since the 1973, 1980, and 1985 elections were those that the PNC clearly and barefacedly rigged, and even David Granger himself is not denying it, then he must do better than remaining silent and equivocating. After all, he was not in charge of (directly) seizing ballot boxes, but it was being done. So he must come clean and confirm the facts already known.
But how can he? Loyalty and love blind and also contort. Mr. Granger has always evinced an unalloyed love for and unwavering devotion to his benefactor, Burnham, and by extension, the PNC. This trained soldier/historian has no qualms whatsoever regarding not just the compromise of morals, but also the distorting of truths.
This is what this revered military academic wrote in October 2003, in Santiago, Chile, in a 28-page essay, titled, ‘Civil Violence, Domestic Terrorism and Internal Security In Guyana, 1953-2003’ at a conference organized by the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies.
“National elections were scheduled for July 1973, realizing that their (PPP) hold on the electorate was slipping further and in an abortive attempt to forestall an obvious and overwhelming PNC victory, a campaign of violence and resistance was planned by the PPP. The GDF was called in to aid the civil power and prevent a breakdown of law and order that was planned by the gangsters. The operation established the maturity and competence of the Force and through sensible precautions and deployment, the PPP’s plan was frustrated. The soldiers behaved splendidly in the face of provocation. The sound political education that the officers and soldiers received during 1971 and 1972 enabled them to act with tact, discretion and firmness in 1973 and this saved the day. The GDF, fully aware of the government’s policy and dedicated to serving the working masses, performed really creditably.”
Such depravity, which manifests itself in outrageous lies, exempts a human being from society. One must take cognizance of the fact that David Granger was a functionary at the very highest echelon within the PNC.
So now, he must not only explain his devilry; he must also embark on a campaign to seek to extinct the PNC. During their tenure, which Granger supported, fear stalked the land, Elections became a sham; Burnham reinvented slavery at Hope Estate, and ‘kick-down-the door banditry was the order of the day.
Even silence from David Granger cannot ensconce him. If his position is tenable, and his candidacy viable, one cannot wait to hear his campaign line and attend his caucus. (Imagine the visages of the Greens and the Corbins).