Mr. Barrington Braithwaite, in a letter to Stabroek News (SN) on 11-27-11 titled, “Only APNU has the expertise to rescue this nation”, only confirms the deviousness of those who secretly fuel the PNC in APNU that they alone have the solutions to Guyana’s problems.
This is cause for concern for the arrogant dangers it impregnates. I am surprised that SN has not published my response, even as a blog.
But he is in good company with Dr David Hinds and Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye, who have been getting much coverage in SN lately.   Mr. Mike McCormack of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) also feels that way. Who can blame them in exclusively championing black causes? None of my letters responding to them, however, found acceptance to be published in SN, which gave them a platform. That’s freedom of the press, and I accept it with respectful disagreement.

Mr. Braithwaite says, “I have chosen not to mention what is now public conversation, so as to establish the obsolescence of a political cult which has survived because of a numerical anomaly.” SN allows Mr. Braithwaite to now portray the PPP/C as a cult, and by extension its core Indian supporters.

All this even as he seemingly condemns Indians and other races who prominently support APNU and the AFC. Isn’t something really wrong when people are not free to make independent choices in an election? Dr Roopnaraine must be in APNU for food?

It is obvious that the Braithwaites of Guyana view the presence of non-Africans in Guyana as interlopers who will always be an anomaly. Mr. Braithwaite is even moreso contemptuous of Indian unity with “some for personal gain and the promise of bright material presents have surrendered (some compromised by their own shortcomings) to the PPP/C against the better of conscience”.

In other words, those blacks who are entitled to their share of Guyana’s riches are traitors. Can Dr Roopnaraine now be in APNU for himself, even as he betrays Dr Rodney’s quest for economic gains for all?

How does Mr. Braithwaite view Guyana’s native Amerindian population, who owned this country long before all of our ancestors came? Inevitably, they will chart their own course, either separately or with others.

Yet Mr. Braithwaite seeks to wholesale inherit all black pain by his understandable embrace of only APNU’s expert solutions.

Unfortunately, he seeks its redressing by visiting his wrath on those whom he believes deprive his happiness. Should APNU supporters rioting after Monday’s elections be expected as traditional? Mr. Eusi Kwayana, in one of his moments of sober reflection, once wrote, “Indians did not enslave Africans. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.”

Nevertheless, for Mr. Braithwaite this makes (us Indians) all guilty, and therefore our “numerical anomaly” is a stifling abhorrence which is bothersome and should be resolved. So long as Indians are deemed guilty because of our (declining) numbers, the Braithwaites of Guyana most assuredly cannot find acceptance, but complete rejection.

All have equal rights to Guyana’s riches, but not equality based on their skin colour. The Indian or any other Guyanese cannot be expected to be responsible for that which “the other” was deprived, or the cause of his outsourcing from Africa. No group should be expected to be constantly harangued or be judged guilty in a letter on the eve of an election, even by SN.

Freedom of the press permits a defence to refute such nefarious claims by the same token which permits its prominent advocacy in SN.
Mr. Braithwaite should find comfort that unpaid slaves still miraculously found money to buy abandoned plantations after slavery was abolished, but yet this is still not now tolerable or permissible by those of whom APNU claims exclusive ownership to keep in perpetual bondage.

And few, if any, had an education like him. What holds a Braithwaite back is himself, not APNU. “The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but ourselves that we are underlings” – Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar so aptly reminds.

What Mr. Braithwaite does by his conclusion is suggest that the “cult-like anomalous people” are not qualified, but only APNU has the expertise and answers. How does one deal with such beliefs, if not by ethnic cleansing as a subtle solution?

The Caribbean Indian has been under attack since his arrival, and he is entitled to seek survival in a hostile black sea.  Mr. Braithwaite is free to separate himself in Mr. Eusi Kwayana’s championing of partition, which is already tabled as the final solution of resort. But he is not entitled to do so in a Samsonian destruction of our joint temple. I, however, definitely prefer federalism, as Mr. Braithwaite’s kind of thinking has no acceptable termination resolution. Such clamours will never end.

Nevertheless, Mr. Braithwaite does have valid criticisms of the PPP/C, as they are not the best government.   No political party can ever be perfect in an imperfect world.

For example, his observation that (1) former New York City Police Commissioner Mr. Bernard Kerik proved to be a failure is accurate. But this became known only after he was earmarked to reorganize the Guyana Police Force. The police force drastically needs revamping and ethnic balancing, all would agree.

So tell me:  Is Mr. Braithwaite, or anyone, that psychically gifted to foretell what is a man actually like before he is selected? President Bush made the same mistake in nominating him as Homeland Secretary, only to withdraw it. Who knows what Mr. Granger will do with all the blood on his hands, his tenure during Rodney’s murder, and his non-experience in managing a country, even as he has no knowledge of economics in a growing worldwide economic recession.

(2) Indeed, how does an Indonesian family end up with Guyanese passports? You can also explain why former PNC parliamentarian Mr. Kadir was found guilty in the U.S. for being a terrorist out to harm  innocent Americans like Dr Richard Van West Charles and his wife, who is the eldest daughter of PNC founder/leader Mr. Forbes Burnham. You may also want me to now believe that the PNC leadership, a la ex-GDF boss Mr. Granger, was directing his men to terrorise America. Bah!

(3) Yes. So how does an Indian mogul (they were Muslims, you know) end up with so many acres of land? And why must an Indian capitalist be exempt from investing in Guyana when others are not? Would you like to explain why Guyana gets so many millions in aid from India, including a cricket stadium? How can this prejudiced PPP/C government build the Indian-gifted stadium in predominantly black Region 4 in Demerara, even as it also wants to put the Indian-funded specialist hospital at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, in the same Region 4?  They also built the Chinese-gifted International Convention Centre in Region 4.

Mr. Braithwaite can find the answer to such “Indian moguls’ ” investment, which emulates President Hoyte’s sale of thousands of acres to a former British House of Lords’ member, who promptly resold it after the PNC left office, and made about nine times the profit than he bought it for. God knows how much kickbacks the PNC got from that deal, similar to that paid to the PNC after it had approved OMAI Gold Mines.  Check the evidence from this quote, verbatim from Guyana’s history, followed by President Hoyte (the best PNC President!) as seen in this article below at http://www.guyanajournal.com/privatization_guyana.html

It says, “in Controversial deals”:
1.
Demerara Woods Ltd.
There were indeed some controversial privatisation deals which took place. The one that received the most publicity was the sale of Demerara Woods Ltd. Lord Beaverbrook, a former treasurer of the British Conservative Party, bought the entity in February 1991 for £9.7 million. He also negotiated and obtained a 50-year lease for 1.1 million acres of rainforest. Just two months later, in April 1991, he sold his interests to United Dutch Company for £61 million worth of equity in that firm. The new complex was renamed Demerara Timbers Ltd. Even though Beaverbrook had, up to mid-1992, not finished paying the Guyana Government for Demerara Woods, he merged the enterprise into the giant United Dutch Company which took control of Demerara Timbers, of which he remained a major shareholder.

By 1992, United Dutch had valued Demerara Timbers at £74 million! The rainforest concession alone was estimated at between US$160 million and US$206 million.

2. Guyana Timbers Ltd.
The book value of the firm was stated at US$130 million, but it was sold for only US$23.2 million in 1991. Registration fees for its Houston operations, amounting to US$178,590, were waived, as was the duty of US$892,900 for the property transfer, and fees of US$555,810 for the firm’s Winiperu operations – a cumulative sum of $1.6 million.

The new firm, styled Caribbean Resources Ltd., continued operations under its new owner, the Colonial Life Insurance Company (CLICO) of Trinidad and Tobago.

Now this should serve as a good lesson how APNU’s expertise and examples are being followed. Mr. Braithwaite’s claims of special APNU expertise returns to demolish him. Aaah, expertise, you get such a bad name by your association.