Black professionals who reject racism targeted…
Henry Greene latest victim of Opposition
GUYANA’S political opposition has no qualms about appealing to the racial sentiments of its supporters and widening the ethnic divide:  And woe betide black leaders and professionals who reject the racial line to carry out their functions within their professional mandates. Police Commissioner Henry Greene is the latest statistic who was caught in the trap of the opposition’s destructive stratagems.
It is well known that Greene likes the girls. He admitted it himself when he refuted accusations of involvement with drugs as the reason behind the withdrawal of his US visa, conjecturing that it was perhaps because he “troubled the girls”, so bringing Greene down was as easy as stealing candy from a baby.
All the strategists had to do was to pay a con artist who would lure the Commissioner to a hotel, have consensual sex with him, and then cry rape.
No one in their right mind would believe that a woman would accompany a man to a hotel room merely to have dinner, or hold hands.  If she voluntarily accompanied the man to a hotel room after an evening of entertainment, where food and drinks were plentiful, then it was only for the purpose of having sexual intercourse; and with the gentleman’s girth, he could hardly have bodily carried her there, because he could hardly carry his own weight.
And why on earth should the DPP advise charges be laid against him for rape, merely, on the word of this woman which makes her a highly credulous person.
What he should be charged for is his ingenuous belief that he is safe from opposition manipulation and laying himself wide open for just such a charge to be laid, when he is fully aware that he is one of their targets because he refuses to bend to their will in once more taking the nation down the path of violence.
This could be equated to the naivety of the senior government official who left his office open, when he deals with highly confidential matters of the state, when he knows that the majority of public servants are antipathetic to the government. That files and flashdrives would be stolen, should have been expected because of the sly and destructive ways in which the opposition operates.
That official, like Greene, laid himself and the government in a quandary.  Anyone could see the opposition’s hands behind both incidents, as well as the hands of their supporters in a USA government that has always been the enemy of the PPP, which they have proven in a continuum of incidents and in a plethora of reports against that party and government.
The attacks on and vilification of Greene have been constant and sustained.
He has been relentlessly pilloried by the collective opposition for daring to conduct his duty in a professional manner – as Laurie Lewis did before him, with the same outcome.
He most likely refused the opposition’s appeals for co-operation to use the ranks under his charge to create or allow mayhem in the country in line with the normal behaviour by the collective opposition elements, and one cannot help but recall a certain recorded conversation (the “hook-up”) between the chairman of an opposition political party and a former Police Commissioner.
In an email correspondence to several persons at 2:32 p.m. on Wednesday 5th January 2000, staunch supporter and candidate of the PNC/APNU during the last elections, Malcolm Harripaul, wrote, inter alia: “As we begin the new century we must reflect on the past one with a view to understanding our recent history so that we can decide what we want in the twenty-first century.  A good starting point is January 12th.  The year 2000 marks the second commemoration of that fateful day in Georgetown in 1998 when Indians were savagely beaten and some of our women were raped by politically-directed African mobs.  The Stabroek News described it as ‘Terror in the city’.  Roving bands of Africans attacked Indians for an entire day as the police kept off the streets, or in some cases in full view of the cops.  January 12th was not an isolated incident.”
He continued:  “January 12th signalled the commencement of a reign of terror against Indians by PNC that left 32 dead.  In January 1998 politically-motivated African bandits initiated a campaign of systematic assassinations of Indian businessmen.  The entire Indian community lived in fear.  Indian businesses were attacked with grenades and rockets.  Indians were again beaten on June 22nd 1998 and March 14th 1999.  The period also saw strikes, protest marches and rallies, arson, and daily bomb threats.  All these activities were not random acts but a concerted politically-directed effort by Africans aimed at toppling the Indian-elected PPP.”
This virulent, concerted effort left indelible scars in the souls of PPP supporters and businessmen, as well as broke the health of then President Mrs. Janet Jagan, and succeeded in truncating the PPP’s term in office, won through internationally-recognised free-and-fair elections.
Harripaul wrote in the same document: “I shall now deal with the reasons for the terror campaign by Africans.  Africans believe that Guyana was willed to them by the British and that they were supposed to rule Guyana by virtue of the ‘Prior Arrival’ and ‘More Suffering’ thesis advanced by their leaders.  According to these theses, Africans arrived before Indians and they suffered more than us, and therefore Guyana naturally belonged to them.
They were meant to be the rulers of Guyana, and they had the first claim on the national patrimony. In other words, Guyana’s wealth was meant (only) for them regardless of whom created that wealth. It is against that background that the 1997 elections violence must be seen.”
The fact that the PNC could not repeat that strategy of 1997 is because the security sector is now largely a professional force in the nation that has at its head, men of integrity and calibre (and girth), and the PNC can no longer appeal to the ‘kith and kin’ syndrome in the psyche of the nation’s protectors.
Guyanese are maturing as a people and they are aware that – individually and collectively- everyone is better off with peace in the land.
So Greene is perceived by the opposition as their bitter enemy, to be removed at all costs.  The opposition, with the assistance of their friends in the USA government, succeeded in having removed from office then Home Affairs Minister, Ronald Gajraj, who succeeded in quelling the wave of violence in the land.
Former Police Commissioner Laurie Lewis, who initiated the professionalisation of the police force eventually gave up and left because of the constant vilification and threats.  Now Henry Greene has become enemy number one of the opposition collective.
Have they succeeded in their most recent plan to take him down and out?  Let us hope not, because this nation may very well end up with another Winston Felix.