HATRED is the tool Guyana’s opposition used to create stratagems to drive their own agendas, and this has agonised and caused destruction to this nation time and again.
This is the sad history of our beloved country: The perennial intention and implementation of strategies to set Guyanese against their fellow Guyanese to make Guyana ungovernable by politicians hostile to the PPP/C Administration.Dr. Cheddi Jagan’s Party has always reached out to embrace political colleagues on the other side, the latest attempt being President Donald Ramotar’s attempt to engage the opposition in tripartite talks to find consensual positions on solutions to problems affecting Guyanese, and to drive Guyana’s development trajectory upward, as is the case recently with the Budget consultations, and the deliberations on the legislation to combat money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT).
However, the joint opposition has rejected this call for consensual positions by the President, and has instead sown the seeds of insurrection in their supporters. When they move on with their comfortable, and even luxurious lives, with their children absolutely safe, their supporters are always left in mourning. Who are the criminals here? Certainly not the ordinary opposition supporters, who have, as usual, merely been used as cannon-fodder to foster the self-serving agendas of their leaders.
Even as Linden was burning, AFC’s, Gerhardt Ramsaroop was promising to rile the people up even more. The regional chairman for Region Ten had incited PNC supporters, saying that the people have to fight back and hurt the Government. However, they are not hurting the Government but their own people.
In Wismar on June 23, 2012, PNC/APNU’s, Aubrey Norton subtly first, and then overtly, incited Lindeners to violence, calling on that party’s supporters to create havoc by blocking access to the interior residential, lumbering and mining areas, and to utilise their skills to challenge the Government’s decision to stop subsidising electricity in that town in a staggered way.
He adjured the gathering, “We have to be prepared to do what is required to achieve our objective. We stand at the gateway to the interior; I say no more… Let me tell you, this Government does not understand reason, so the only solution to this Government comes from pressure, more pressure… We have to put them in the pressure.”
The result of destruction, mayhem and murder is history. Norton reiterated that the task at hand was to ensure that Government backs down. But who suffered?
In 2003, at the height of another PNC campaign to destabilise a PPP government, Freddie Kissoon had written in an article titled, “Opposition abuses the trust of some of its supporters by teaching them the art of self-destruction”. In this article, Freddie wrote about the captive audience the extremists within the opposition had in the youths of Buxton. This is what he had to say:
“These youths were being taught by men who were politically ignorant, extremist and essentially racist. The voodoo theory they taught the Buxton conspiracy was simply the language of self-destruction… Self-destruction is essentially what occurred in Buxton (and Linden), and the opposition extremists attempted to spread this to other parts of Guyana. Thankfully, they did not ultimately succeed.”
There is a reason why these extremists have almost taken up home in Linden of recent times, and that reason is because they consider that this traditional stronghold of theirs is ideal for them to restart their sinister campaign of terror and destruction.
The lawless behaviour of PNC/APNU Attorney-at-Law, James Bond, who incited supporters to participate in an illegal procession post-elections in defiance of police orders in December of 2011 is also a case in point. Thank God for then Commissioner of Police, Henry Greene and the professionalism of the Guyana Police Force for rejecting the opposition’s racist “kith and kin” rhetoric and instead stayed true to their mandate of protecting and serving the people; all the people of this nation, or else Guyana’s capital city would have been in a worse state than Linden is in today. Kudos are due to our Police Force, which did its duty at great risk to the lives of ranks. They stood their ground in the face of much provocation and danger to protect the peaceful citizens of Guyana.
The catastrophic occurrences in Linden and Agricola in early 2012 have been the tragic outcomes of opposition’s “peaceful protests”. The police acted on their mandate and prevented anarchy from taking root after the several assaults on property and persons in the two communities had escalated to dangerous levels. They patiently stood sentinel in the broiling sun during the peaceful period of the protest in Linden, even when the Linden bridge, which was the main artery to the hinterland communities, was blocked for hours.
However, when peaceful, law-abiding citizens started complaining bitterly about police inaction while they were prevented for hours from going about their business, with traffic backed up on both sides of the road in long queues, the police requested removal of the barriers to the bridge.
Instead of complying with the law, the police came under assault by the protesters. They were attacked by the violent and unruly crowd, pelted with stones and glass bottles, which the protesters had evidently amassed beforehand for just such an eventuality, which they had provoked for hours, while the police had stoically endured the haranguing and taunts, until commuters lost patience and upbraided the police for unprofessional conduct and for standing by while law-abiding citizens were held to ransom by what they called “the unruly rabble”.
The sad and tragic outcome is directly attributable to the agents provocateurs of the joint opposition and their media counterparts. But then, the opposition supporters are merely the usual pawns, described by Ramjattan of the AFC as “collateral damage”, as they pursue their self-serving quest for power.
As Freddie Kissoon had articulated in 2003, “It is frightening what the violent youths of Buxton were educated in. They were told the most untruthful things about the Government, the business-class and the East Indian community.” But after Buxtonians had rejected their calls for a return to violence, they moved their campaign of “divide and conquer” to Linden.
The unfortunate turn of events which occurred in the mining town of Linden on the night of July 18, 2012 is truly unfortunate and deeply saddening for all Guyana. The real tragedy of the loss of lives and the tragedy of the retardation of development that would ensue from this fiasco is to be laid squarely at the foot of the joint opposition and their satellites in the media who are hostile to the PPP/C Government.
The professional protesters, who seem to be suffering from a syndrome of attention deficit, have predictably been used as pawns by the opposition collective of leaders to sow the seeds of insurrection. The extremists had their little mobs go around destroying the facilities that serve and benefit their families and communities; and while the inciters return to their safe and comfortable homes and their luxurious lifestyles, the residents of Linden, like those in Buxton, were left with the detritus from the opportunistic meanderings of the tsars and tsarinas of terror.
But why should they care of the lives they leave behind, torn, shattered and destroyed? After all, these people are merely “collateral damage”.
Prior to the 2011 elections, Tacuma Ogunseye had said, “We have to go there and cast all our votes; but if, at the end of the day, we fall short, we have to move to Stage Two; and Stage Two must be a massive rebellion of African people throughout the length and breadth of this country…
“Given the ethnic and political history of our security forces, it is very unlikely that the PPP/C Government can militarily defeat an African armed resistance.”
As Martin Luther King (Jr) once said: “I have decided to stick with love; hatred is too great a burden to bear.”
When will Guyanese learn and chase away these incitors to race-hate when they come to their communities beating their war-drums? The answer is: Only when all Guyanese begin appreciating and respecting each other, and join together in efforts to build our country, so that all of us, as a united nation, can live in peace and strive together for prosperity in this country that is our collective patrimony by all of our ancestors.