The burden of hate the Opposition is laying on this nation is like the proverbial albatross of “The Ancient Mariner” fame; and this burden is systematically wasting away the valuable resources that can propel Guyana’s social development and economic growth to unprecedented levels.One only has to hear, not merely listen to, but hear the sublimal message within the joint Opposition’s pronouncements, utterances, and actions to understand that they are determined to once more take Guyana down that dark and retrograde path post-2012 Budget Day.

Dr. Martin Luther King (Jnr) said: “I have decided to stick with love; hate is too great a burden to bear.” But this is an alien concept to the collective opposition – in and out of Parliament. Hatred is Guyana Opposition’s tool used to create stratagems to drive their own agendas, and this has agonised and caused destruction to this nation time and again.

Dire consequences to the nation always ensue when the opposition incites volatility in actions by their supporters with their inflammatory rhetoric.

Instead of heeding a timely warning by this newspaper in 2012, the professional protesters reviled this newspaper’s staff as being ‘racists’ and set fire to the Chronicle; just prior to Linden being set afire – figuratively and literally.

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. While 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, the joint Opposition has rejected this call by the president and has instead sown the seeds in insurrection in their supporters. As always, they succeeded in setting the country on fire and getting the innocent injured and killed.

When they move on with their comfortable and even luxurious lives, with their children absolutely safe, their supporters and their victims are left in mourning.

Who are the criminals here? Certainly not the 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 10 had incited PNC supporters, saying that the people have to fight back and hurt the government, “…. they will lead us to a state of emergency.”

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 mining areas and to utilise their skills to challenge the Government’s decision to stop subsidising electricity in that town and bring the rates up, in a staggered way, to national levels.
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.”
Norton reiterated that the task at hand is to ensure that Government backs down. This was like the blackmail Dr. Jagan’s first Government was subjected to with the infamous X-13 Plan, so that he had to concede to Duncan Sandys’ proposal, which was the precipitator of the destruction of Guyana.

In 2003, at the height of another PNC campaign to destabilise a PPP Government, Freddy Kissoon had written, in an article entitled “OPPOSITION ABUSES THE TRUST OF SOME OF ITS SUPPORTERS BY TEACHING THEM THE ART OF – SELF DESTRUCTION.”

In this article Freddy 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 – essentially what occurred in Buxton 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 had almost taken up home in Linden during the riot, and that reason was because that PNC stronghold was ideal for them to restart their sinister campaign of terror and destruction.

In 2003, Freddy Kissoon had described these extremists as racists and specifically spoke about the dangers of one he referred to as “Mr. Wild Man”, who was arrested and charged for treason, and Freddy had underscored the dangers of such individuals back then.

The lawless behaviour of PNC/APNU Attorney James Bond, who incited supporters to participate in an illegal procession post-elections in defiance of police orders in December of 2012 is also a case in point. Thank God for, then, Commissioner of Police Henry Greene and the professionalism of Guyana’s Police Force, who rejected 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.

Again thank God for, then, Acting Police Commissioner Brumell and his ranks: Kudos to members of our police force, who did their duty at great risk to the lives of ranks. They stood their grounds in the face of much provocation and danger and did their duty to protect the peaceful citizens of Guyana and Guyanese once more owe them thanks.

The catastrophic occurrences in Linden have always been the tragic outcomes of Opposition’s “peaceful protests”.

The police acted on their mandate and prevented anarchy in the land from taking root after the several assaults on property and persons in the community had escalated to dangerous levels.
They patiently stood sentinel during the peaceful period of the protest, even when the bridge, which was the main artery to the hinterland communities was blocked for hours.

However, when peaceful law-abiding citizens had 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 violent assault by the protesters.

They were attacked by the violently 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 has stoically endured the haranguing and taunts, until commuters had 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 agent provocateurs of the joint Opposition and their media counterparts.

But then, the Opposition supporters are merely the usual pawns, described Ramjattan of the AFC as “collateral damage”, as they pursue their self-serving quest for power in the land.

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.”

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 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.

A main bridge was destroyed, the PPP/C office in Linden and other buildings were set ablaze, a fuel truck was damaged and police reports claimed dangerous objects such as glass bottles, bricks and stones of considerable sizes and missiles were hurled at members of the police ranks. What next, Guyana? Are we going to completely destroy our motherland to satisfy the Opposition’s egoistic and evil self-aggrandizement, even if we lose our own lives, or take the lives of our fellow citizens in the process?

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 returned to their safe and comfortable homes and their luxurious lifestyles the residents of Linden would be left with the detritus from the opportunistic meanderings of the tsars and tsarinas of terror.

But why should they care about the lives they leave behind – torn, shattered and destroyed? After all these people are merely “collateral damage”.
The war drums have begun to be beaten in the National Assembly by the joint Opposition, but when will Guyanese learn and chase away these incitors to race-hate when they come to their communities urging them to the frenzied dance in sync with those war-drums? 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 will there be prosperity in this country that is our collective patrimony by all of our ancestors.