I have noted a letter from Adel Lilly and Mark Arthur in Kaieteur News (July 21, 2011) touching on PPP’s Donald Ramotar criticising David Granger of APNU/PNC. Lilly wrote about Granger’s distinguished service, and who has been awarded the MSS, MSM efficiency medal, BDM. He/she spoke of Granger offering the country the experience and expertise he has gained in more than 30 years of public service, including academia.
Arthur wrote about records to prove that Granger may not be involved in misconduct. But conduct and misconduct are relative quantities left to the judgment of the observer. He also stated that Apan Jhatt is dead. If Apan Jhatt is dead, the whole country will soon die, for there will be no procreation. Jhatt is a Hindi word that has connection with the genitals. It is a pity when people use words parrot-like without knowing the meanings thereof. (Like Ramayya with his Chatoondar) When Lily puts Granger on the pedestal of academia, she has defined what that is. Let us then look at what Granger has written and see how intellectually dishonest this distinguished son of the soil is when he sets out to prostitute historical records of our country.
Granger wrote in his book, The New Road – A Short History of the Guyana Defence Force 1966-1976.” The relevance and significance of those years is important, because those are the years when Guyana was mired in the dust of corruption and vote rigging. The period selected by Granger was to attempt to hoodwink the nation and the world. What did he write? He wrote that national elections were scheduled to be held in July 1973, and the Guyana Defence Force (of which he was a distinguished member) “was called in to aid the civil power and prevent a breakdown of law and order that was planned by the gangsters.” Those gangsters, according to him were supporters of the PPP. He has not written about the ballot boxes being seized by his army colleagues and taken to Camp Ayanganna in Georgetown, where the votes were counted. He did not explain why the windows of the huge structure – Camp Ayanganna – were blanketed with black window blinds. He has not written that when the ballots were taken out to be counted they were held together by rubber bands, and that the PNC got more than 100 percent of the votes cast.
So we have another write-up on the elections in 1973, when Granger is telling the world he had nothing to do with it, and he did not shoot or kill anyone – meaning the two persons who tried to save the ballots from the GDF soldiers on the Corentyne Coast. But then, not only Granger can write. We hear from the CIA Facebook as follows: “The PNC’s increasing politicisation and subordination of the GDF disturbed many members of the Officer Corps. When some expressed a desire for military neutrality, PNC informants in the armed forces alerted Burnham to the dissension within the GDF. Colonel Ulric Pilgrim, the operational force commander (who has since died), and Colonel Carl Morgan, a battalion commander (and still alive today), were dismissed. Pilgrim and Morgan had been two of the most popular officers in the GDF. Burnham appointed PNC loyalist Colonel David Granger to command the Guyana Defence Force.
David Granger is recruiting army veterans as ‘scrutineers’ at polling booths for the forthcoming elections. Are these scrutineers among the soldiers who removed the ballot boxes in 1973, when two young men were slaughtered by members of Granger’s GDF then? And we see ominous signs. Former Police Commissioner Felix has joined the band. We saw his appearance on Nomination Day when he was speaking to persons who, shortly after, invaded City Hall. It is not disputed that Felix was the Commissioner of Police at the time when we had the Bagotstown massacre, and he was allegedly thanked by a senior member of the PNC for directing attention away from members of that party in that slaughter. A tape of that telephone conversation is available.
Whither are we drifting?