NIGEL Hughes has abandoned the Lindeners once again, like the diabolical

leaders of the opposition parties did after riling them up on one pretext after another (and the killing of the three Lindeners is highly suspect), so that they rampaged in one opposition enclave after another, destroying the country and hurting innocent citizens in the process; then disappearing into their havens of security with their families when the fracas started.
Cry a river of blood for our country, and for the annihilation of hope for peace in the nation as headlines scream the death knell of the nation’s flowers while fountains of champagne celebrate the deaths of innocents, because man’s inhumanity to man knows no boundaries, nor loyalties to kith, kin, or country; but only to the id and the ego.
And the egomaniacs proliferate, and history resounds with the cries of their victims, while the architects of mayhem and murder in the land toast each other with champagne for the success of their Machiavellian schemes.
But where is the voice of reason? Because that silent voice in nations is as guilty of the blood of the innocents as the fingers that pulled triggers and the architects who create blueprints for massacre and mayhem in nations.
Evil cannot propagate, perpetuate, nor serve in any way as a catalyst for outcomes of good, for its very definition encapsulates every consequence of destruction. So how could those who plan, propose, and orchestrate the deaths of Guyana’s peoples be harbingers of anything good for this nation?  Which patriotic, caring leader would take his country down this path, which almost obliterated the cohesiveness of Guyana’s nationhood in the ‘60s, and set this nation’s economic and social progress on a downward spiral that graphed this once prosperous nation on the same level as Haiti?
Guyana is God’s own country; but, as in the Garden of Eden, the devil resides within, and has its serpentine coils wrapped firmly around this nation, slowly injecting its venomous brew into the national psyche and social structures, because, like Satan, it wants domination and control and power over God’s creations.
Some, like Eve, are easily seduced by the promises of easy-come prosperity, forgetting that the outcome of that seduction was the loss of Paradise, and that when the former administration controlled Guyana, they transformed this Paradise into a veritable hell.
Perhaps the citizenry, being seduced by opposition promises, crave a return to those days.
The issue of power-sharing has become a focal point whereby PNC supporters are prepared to go to ultimate extremes for a few egomaniacs to regain administrative leverage in this country; never mind that when they had total power, they used it to destroy rather than build.
Full administrative control has always eluded the PPP/C. Rampaging corruption and ineptitude have prevailed even after the general elections of l992, thanks to the destabilising strategies of the PNC/APNU, now joined by the AFC and its traditional allies – both overt and covert: Overtly, the Trades Union Congress (TUC), the Guyana Public Service Union (GPSU), and the Transport Union, all of which oppose every system the government attempts to implement towards restoring an orderly administrative structure in the Public Service.
Covertly? Well, the discerning can judge for themselves, using as a barometer past history with the House of Israel, the missing weapons, the glorifying of “Blackie” and others of his ilk. And if one does not condone their methods for acquisition of greater power and align with their concept of “kith and kin”, preferring to align with systems promoting national good, then one is called ‘traitor’.  Witness attacks on Bishop Juan Edghill, Father Gilbert, and the late CoP Henry Greene and other like-minded citizens of this land.
Members of Guyana’s security services, young men who are duty-bound to protect this nation, are slaughtered indiscriminately – to what avail?  Men, women, and even children living simple lives are butchered even as they sleep in the sanctuary of their homes.
In the concept of power-sharing, power is the operative word.  The contenders care not at all about the welfare of their supporters. Their goal is not-so-purely self-aggrandizement by whatever means possible, even if this means the destruction of the country and the unity of the Guyanese people.  Power is the key.
Participatory leadership is what the objective should be – and the PPP/Civic Government has implemented systems that include all stakeholders in participatory governance: in its Civic component, in the parliamentary committees, and even within Parliament itself.
Dr. Cheddi Jagan had always pursued this ideal – first by forming the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), then the PPP, with a composition of membership that bridged all the divides. Race was certainly never an issue during those days of struggle against colonialism: But greed for power reared its ugly head like the biblical serpent, and catalysed between Guyana’s two major races a division and distrust that has lasted for decades.
It is this recognition of the need for participatory leadership that prompted Dr Jagan — even while he was being cheated through the electoral process — to reach out to his opponents, either through offering critical support for some worthwhile programmes initiated by the PNC Government, or the formation of the Federation of Independent Trade Unions of Guyana (FITUG) and the Patriotic Coalition for Democracy (PCD) in efforts to restore a democratic culture in Guyana prior to l992.
But because the other leaders of Guyana were interested only in power, rather than caring for the welfare of the nation, Dr. Jagan faced bitter opposition from his protagonists, to the detriment of national unity and prosperity. Today, those who want entry into government through the back door are touting power-sharing and using every tactic of destabilisation in efforts to eventuate this outcome.
Dr. Jagan never abandoned his thinking, however, and reached out to the general society of those who dreamt, like himself, of a government of national unity.  Thus was the Civic component of the government conceived and implemented.
So there was no winner-take-all policy, even from the inception, if one judges from the original composition of the PPP/C Cabinet; and even today, leaders from other parties, as well as former ministers and prominent members of the PNC administration, comprise the current Cabinet, along with a surprisingly few original members of the PPP.
The PPP/Civic government has also retained key officials in sensitive areas of administration, and has never sought accountability from the past regime for state properties and records, much of which had disappeared when they demitted office; so there was never any witch-hunting.
Today, the Chair of the Public Accounts Committee, which is mandated to scrutinise every aspect and facet of public spending, has been held from the inception by the PNC, through the edict of the PPP/C administration under the Bharrat Jagdeo regime, which at that time had the majority in Parliament.
These parliamentary committees, whereby members of government and opposition interrelate with all stakeholders to scrutinise and advise on the way forward for policy decisions in the governance process, formerly generated a mutual respect between participating MPs, to the extent where young PPP/C M.P. Irfaan Ali found himself so much in sync with the thinking of PNC veteran Winston Murray, then PAC chairman, as they examined the nations accounts, that one female PNC/R M.P. once teased Irfaan Ali that he would soon belong to them.
Initially, these processes created friends out of once bitter enemies, who worked unstintingly, committedly, always striving for unanimity towards decisions for the nation’s good; and even when unanimity was not achieved, relations remained cordial. However, loyalty to party superseded, and sometimes succeeded in derailing decisions taken at committee level by individual members; and strategies of destabilisation and provocation ensued. Today, the joint opposition’s antics, through its misuse of its six-votes, one-seat majority, have derailed all the goodwill and commitment to the national good that was driven by a PPP/C majority in Parliament.
Within the parameters of the human condition, disagreement at any forum is inevitable; but it bespeaks maturity, unity of purpose, and vision, transcending to the exclusion of narrow partisan and personal interests to chart and hold a course toward achievement of an ideal of a nation united in purpose to carve a destiny of peace and prosperity, and truly make of this country of ours a paradise on earth.
But the hard-core veterans, whose charter includes utilisation of all the Machiavellian strategies contained in the diabolical X-13 Plan, are making the nation cry rivers of blood, while the voice of reason has been silenced in the thunder of the guns, and muted by the flames that devastate the nation’s hope for a brighter future.