PLEASE grant me some space in your newspaper to express what happened on Nomination Day and at Buxton and also to state what I envisage would be taking place in this country very soon. Whether one believes it or not, truth is an indomitable force and an element that is indispensible in human society. It is the hatred for this virtue and/or the manipulation of it which characterises the global human dilemma we are in. Thursday, October 27, 2011 was Nomination Day.
Each political party participating in the national and regional elections proceeded to City Hall in Georgetown to deliver its list of candidates and other documents to the Election Officers. This was in accordance with the law for participation in the election process slated for November 28, 2011.
What is the truth of what took place there that afternoon?
The PPP/C was the first party to arrive at City Hall and deliver its election documents. That party came with a large entourage of thousands of jubilant, happy and enthusiastic people. That crowd was orderly and civil as they lined Regent Street and spilled over into Avenue of the Republic. Others stood behind the barricades set up by the City Constabulary.
The next party to arrive at City Hall was APNU. It too had a huge entourage. As the crowd drew near  City Hall, becoming wildly enthusiastic and boisterous, it stormed into the yard of City Hall. The rushing crowd acted like a human bulldozer, pushing down the barricades in the most uncouth, disrespectful, ill-mannered and lawless fashion as they swept everyone in front, even their leader, David Granger was forcibly sandwiched by the unruly crowd which by now was forcing its way up the steps to get into the prepared signing area. It was truly a sight to behold.
As I stood safely out of the way on Regent Street, my mind flashed back to the 1970s – an exact manifestation of a part of what the people of this country had to endure throughout the 1970s and 80s the exception though, is that the crowd here did not have anyone there for them to beat.
Nevertheless, just before the spectacle which I just described above, one well known henchman of the PNC passed in front of me. He slowed up enough to stare in my face and blurt out “Heyyuy PPP hack wa yu staning up hea watchin, wa yu staning up hea fa?” As he passed, I kept looking at him; he kept on spewing out aspersions looking back as he walked away.
After Mr. Granger had reached the reception area at City Hall and the ruckus level had reduced somewhat, I moved on to King Street. I was now standing on the sidewalk in King Street facing north. Not far from me was Mr. Norris Witter, head of the General Workers Union. He was at the corner of King and Regent Streets. As he was speaking with a group of his friends, they all turned and looked at me at one point.
Shortly after, Witter and his friends moved away. Witter soon returned going south on King Street. I did not see him because I stood on the pavement facing northeast. I turned my head in the same direction as Witter,who yelled: “You stand up hay watching! You watching! Is the demise of all a you; is the demise of PPP you watching!” I turned away and did not hear the rest of his insults. Instantly, I thought to myself “what kind of people are these? Don’t they have respect for themselves or others?”
Later that night I was relating to my son what I had seen at City Hall, the behaviour of the PNC member and Mr. Witter. During our conversation I said to my son, “Don’t these people have any decency, decorum and/or propriety? As the head of a union with the task of leading people, why does he, Witter, have to descend so low?” My son retorted, “ no dad, he and others like him have not descended. That is exactly where they are.”
As we spoke I mentioned to him that all the APNU people at City Hall who exhibited total disregard for civility were my own people (meaning Africans). My son then made this uncomfortable truth: “Daddy, he said, “most of the unruly people who displayed utter disrespect were women.” I said to him, “but women are the ones who are expected to teach our children respect, decency, politeness and healthy attitudes and values.”
Instantly, I was unable to continue the conversation. The tears started to settle in my eyes. I began to think of the long coffles of young African men who trek from the Camp Street jail every morning to the Magistrates’ and Supreme Courts. How sad it is that children can only live what they learn. What did the children learn from watching the APNU crowd on October 27, 2011? You be the judge.
I have been for a long time now assessing the modus operandi of the opposition elements in Guyana. I juxtapose what the opposition are doing and saying here with what prevailed and are prevailing in the five countries of the Caribbean and two continents in which I have lived.
I have concluded through my experience that nowhere have opposition elements done more damage to the minds of citizenry than in Guyana. The consequences of that protracted poisoning (the methodology of that poisoning I will discuss later) is going to be horrific. The magnitude of the peril of what is to come is just beginning to emerge. There are some clear indicators, but here I will identify only two physical ones which I have witnessed.
The first is the one I have described that took place at City Hall on Nomination Day. The second is what took place at a PPP/C rally at the Middle Walk Line top at Buxton on the East Coast of Demerara on Thursday evening, November 3, 2011.
At the City Hall there were no PPP/C supporters around for the APNU supporters to turn on and beat. At Buxton APNU supporters did not only beat Africans who were wearing PPP/C jerseys, but they also fell on a few of their own African brothers and tore off the PPP/C jerseys they were wearing.
This part of what I have witnessed may not have been observed by the PPP/C executives and speakers at the rally, because it occurred after the close of the rally when all or most of the PPP/C leaders had already left.
Please permit me to repeat: having assessed for a very long time the strategies the opposition elements have used to take this country in the direction they want and what that will precipitate, I wish to warn all concerned persons as follows:
Whether the opposition elements win or lose in the coming elections, they will cause to be brought about mayhem in our land.
If the opposition wins, it will unleash unprecedented witch-hunting, retribution and recrimination. The Africans in APNU and the AFC will first turn their venom on Africans who are supporters of PPP/C. Many who survived death in the past in this land at the hands of the PNC, and I know their nature, will be targeted.
The Africans who support the PPP/C all know that they have a Universal and God given right to freedom of choice and to live our lives the way we please and to support whoever we wish.
Africans will not submit to the vulgarity meted out to them. They will not accept PNC violence like before or escape abroad to save their lives. They will remember what they were forced to endure under the PNC.
With their backs against the wall for a second spell, Africans will fight back. Yours truly suffered beatings and broken ribs; was charged with possession of arms and ammunition; thrown in jail and held incommunicado; ambushed and set up to be shot; confronted with gunmen  – PNC and House of Israel – in my house; was classified as security risk and endless torment and insults that were endured.
A civil war is what the opposition is creating in this country. The APNU and the AFC have already set that stage by preaching that Africans who support the PPP/C are traitors, turncoats, sell-outs, soup-drinkers, lap-dogs, wolves in sheep clothing and a host of other disparaging, insulting, denigrating and scornful epit
hets. The PNC and APNU’s doctrine is that all Africans must belong to their party and if you don’t, you are a traitor if you join any other party.
All these affronts to persons’ self-respect form the deadly toxic brew that are assimilated into the minds of APNU supporters which spawn the most adversarial climate the nation has ever seen. To make the environment even more explosive is what is shown ad naseum on a certain TV station.
All the above mentioned titillate the emotion of the poor and uniform. All kinds of dangerously false, misleading and wicked information has become the opposition’s most effective weapon. One most false, misleading and wicked advertisement is the $3,000,000 per month of President Bharrat Jagdeo’s pension , juxtaposed with pensioners $7,500 per month. That sinister act concatenate with the song, “We Gon Chase Those Crazy Ball Heads Out A De Town” is an extremely emotive stimulant.
Indeed, this, not so subliminal and overt message which is that the government is stealing millions from the poor to enrich themselves with “Prados, Pradoville houses” and “millions stashed away in foreign banks” is a most cynical and devastating combination caressing the minds of  ordinary persons. Hence, the stealing, “Crazy ball head oppressors” must be chased out a de town. That chasing, however always ends up, always ends up with unspeakable bloodshed such as in Rwanda and Kenya.
One of the most dangerous developments at this time is that some religious leaders, claiming to be speaking for God and using the Bible to persuade people to follow APNU, have formed an alliance to return this country to Burnhamism.
If on the other hand the opposition loses the elections, they will not accept that fact. They have already turned the majority of their supporters into combat machines from what they have been preaching, writing and showing on the TV. Since human minds are what they are – recorders of information fed to them – the minds of APNU leaders and followers cannot and will not be brought to accepting defeat.
The PNC have been using the very tactics of priming the minds of their supporters which they have used during the 1970s and 80s to attack and beat innocent people, insult and provoke them then concoct false accusations in their first step to bring out their supporters en masse in the aim to destabilise the country.
What then are we faced with? We, the people of this country who cherish life and the beauty of God’s creations are facing down the barrel of  a cannon. Once the emotions of a group of people have been primed over a period of time by what they hear and see and are persuaded to believe a certain thing, they will act in accordance with their perception based on the depth of assimilation over time. Trust and honesty have no room.
A person’s mindset determines what he will do. A person’s reality is what he is made to believe, that is his reality. The opposition in Guyana have been teaching, especially the young, who knows nothing of the past, that they have been “discriminated against, marginalised” ostracised, denied their humanity and are enslaved” to mention a few. “The government is a brutal, elected dictatorship.”
What matters to the opposition is to carve out a certain mindset. They labour relentlessly to get across the message that the whole country is a helpless “victim of a brutal dictator”. This is the only weapon left, having exhausted every conceivable thing to poison and twist the minds of the citizenry. They have been relentless and unrelenting.
Those minds that have been captivated by the toxic philosophy of APNU and the AFC are going to act according to what they are made into. They are no longer national beings. Reality is what they believe. “The PPP/C is the devil that must be gotten rid of”, and they see it as their duty to fulfil that task.
When a group of people are made to act on what they are told, and those who teach them are only concerned with the ends and not the means, all civility, reasoning, discipline humanity, commonsense and kindness depart.
The danger to this country is very real. The question is: what should or must be done at this point with Election Day just 14 days away? I want to beseech our President Dr Bharrat Jagdeo to immediately inform and alert all election observers, all CARICOM States, all UNASUR heads, the United Nations Secretary General and the Commonwealth Secretariat concerning the atmosphere the opposition here has engendered and the mindset for the unleashing of civil war among our people. Once this is done the international community will be in a position to act at the first sight of bloodshed.
My plea is not an idle gesture. I emphasise what is going to happen. All the parties will come together in a national alliance to defeat the PPP/C whether they win or lose; their conduct will engender violence in this democratic and peaceful country. Do not wait until it is too late, God’s truth is marching on.