THE farce being played out in the courtroom with regards the former President’s libel suit against Kaieteur News would boggle the mind of any sane human being.
However, this is not a fictional scenario – or it is not supposed to be: This is supposed to be a case being tried in a court, but what is instead being played out is a reprehensible saga of betrayal, and a hatefest against Guyanese of Indian origin by persons who want to take this nation back to the days when Guyanese hated each other merely on the grounds of ethnicity.
At every front the opposition collective is attempting to divide the nation and derail development and growth in the country to foster their own ambitions and self-aggrandizement. But Guyanese en masse need to take a hard look at the reality in our country and judge the truth for themselves.
There was a time in Guyana – pre-1992, when the average Guyanese faced a starkly hopeless future.
Real estate was owned by some entrepreneurial dynastic families through great sacrifices and astute investments, some descendants of slaves and indentured immigrants who had the foresight not to sell their ancestral patrimony to others for short-term gains, and the privileged elite who were gifted large acreages of state lands in return for loyalty to the administrative construct of the day.
Except for a privileged few, Guyanese had no real expectation of upward mobility or of escaping lives of grinding poverty and hopelessness, unless one engages in ‘backtrack activities’ like a certain media mogul.
But the average rank-and-file Guyanese masses had scant hope of ever owning their own homes, or of emerging out of poverty; especially with the PNC’s Economic Recovery Programme (ERP) which, among other inhibiting strictures to personal development, had frozen the wages of Public Servants at an approximate $2,000, while the toothless poodle that was the Public Service Union then and the TUC stayed inactive, until that champion of the working class and Father of the Nation, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, post-elections of 1992, told the IMF where to shove their conditionalities and restored bargaining power to trade unions.
The subsequent drive to reduce and/or altogether eliminate Guyana’s debt burden and simultaneous developmental interventions was done through engagements at various fora – nationally, regionally, and internationally; but the Jagans had achieved their hearts’ objective and restored democracy – real freedom to Guyana and the Guyanese people before being forced to succumb to their mortality.
However, they had charted the course of this nation’s future through the political infrastructure they had created and they placed this machinery into the hands of someone they hand-picked.
Bharrat Jagdeo had the simple humility of the Jagans; but he also had the vision, the strength, the courage and the commitment to chart the course of this nation forward as per the blueprint of the Father of the Nation; and he made no compromises in delivering to Guyana and the Guyanese people all that Dr. Cheddi Jagan had promised in the PPP/C Manifestos; albeit with some detours along the way to fit new and emerging challenges.
As PPP General-Secretary and Guyana’s current President, H.E. Mr. Donald Ramotar said at Babu John in March of last year, during commemorative observances for the Jagans, the PPP has never diverted from the course of progress charted by its founding leader, although some characteristics had been re-structured and re-formulated to address requisite changes in the administrative constructs and implementation of programmes created in the original PPP blueprint of Guyana’s development paradigm.
The charge laid on the then very young and inexperienced shoulders of Bharrat Jagdeo by the patriarch and matriarch of the land has been executed, maybe even beyond their expectations.
It has not been an easy road, because his stewardship of the land was severely constrained by violent protests, crime waves, volatile and inhibiting opposition factions, including hostile media, all of which have strong links to powerful lobby groups in international spheres, and which did not engage in constructive ways with the Government to advance the interests of the nation but, instead, devised strategies intended to derail (and sometimes succeeding) Government’s thrust to rebuild all the destroyed and devastated dynamics of this nation.
Yet former President Jagdeo can stride with his head high for a job magnificently done; despite the best attempts of his detractors, and the pessimists of the land, all of whom are pursuing self-serving agendas.
The sad reality is that the destructive elements in this beautiful country continue to intentionally propagate hatred among the peoples of this land on the erroneous premise of discriminatory practices by the PPP/C administration against some communities, despite overwhelming and abundant evidence to the contrary.
However, most Guyanese – across every divide, throughout the land, have gotten wiser and are rejecting calls for division and strife in the land, opting instead for peace that they know will lead to prosperity and a posterity of promise fulfilled to the maximum of Guyana’s potential for greatness.
The successive PPP/C governments’ and former Presidents’ even-handed administration has been recognised by the people, who have now largely embarked on a course whereby everyone can eventually stand up and say with pride “I am a Guyanese citizen”, and stand and applaud the achievements of a President of this country, all their own, who has brought glory and recognition the Guyanese people – collectively.
In the words of Dave Martins, Guyana’s former President Jagdeo and his remarkable achievements, which are being lauded at world fora, “is we own.”
Jagdeo has served his country and people well – all of his people, and the likes of a certain newspaper columnist and the other hate-mongers in and out of Guyana can never succeed in blackening his face, despite their lies, false accusations and allegations, and their unrelenting efforts to stymie all the development projects he has set in train to institute peace and bring prosperity in this nation, the latest being the ANSA McAL imbroglio.
This continuum of attacks against the PPP/C administration is now being diverted to President Ramotar, who is proving his fortitude and standing up admirably to the relentless barrage of firepower by the destroyers of the nation. After all, while Bharrat Jagdeo was a young lion, Donald Ramotar is a veteran of struggle against the destructive and oppressive forces in Guyana’s political landscape, having been blooded in Cheddi Jagan’s footprints.
He is not easily daunted by threats of instability, nor derailed by diversionary tactics. As such, we have every confidence he will not be bested by those whom are intent in taking Guyana into the realms of darkness and destruction once more.