DURING cross examination, Lead Counsel for the People’s National Congress Reform (PNC/R) at the ongoing Walter Rodney Commission of Inquiry (COI), Basil Williams, suggested that Joseph Hamilton went from a priest to a demon, based on the testimony he has given.But Hamilton was a youth who made bad choices, based on the then extant circumstances of the prevailing times of Walter Rodney’s freedom struggle. Plato had philosophised that the most evil person can change their persona if they decided to turn their whole soul toward the light, as a more mature, spiritually-awakened Joseph Hamilton has.
The PPP/C Government has been transforming Guyana from a basket-case into a bread basket, against constraints that would cripple any other governmental construct, and has achieved a modern Guyana that moved Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and The Grenadines into describing our country as “The only shining star of the Caribbean”, with lifestyle enhancement changes having created what has been described as “a middle-income economy” that, from less than two decades away being known as the second poorest nation in the world, second only to Haiti.
And even former die-hard opposition members are being forced to concede that their lives are tremendously better off, a complete reversal than previously obtained under a PNC administration, when struggle for survival at every level, deprivation of every human right, and terror ruled the day.
Of course, there are those like Adam Harris and others of his ilk, who benefitted tremendously from the dictatorial regime, and who want a reversal of the current governmental construct into that of yesteryears, just so that they can once more rule as despots.
And this is why Joe Hamilton is being chastised by Basil Williams and other PNC-ites for revealing the truth of the terror of the times during PNC rule of dictatorship, oppression, suppression and rigged elections, with a mixture of mayhem and murder thrown in for good measure.
Hamilton’s claims, inter alia, that during 1978, while he was a student priest in the House of Israel, he was forced moments after reading the Bible to beat and terrorise opponents to the then PNC government is being rubbished by Williams, who suggested that Hamilton went from “being a priest to a demon,” a suggestion that was rejected by Hamilton, who claimed that at the time his actions were seen as doing a good.
But Williams and many PNC supporters claim to be adherents of biblical teachings, and are fully aware of the stories of the Good Samaritan, Mary Magdalene, Saul, who converted to Paul on the road to Damascus after a visitation from the Lord, among others; so it resides within the human spirit to transform their thinking and conduct, and become better human beings with humane consciences, as Joe Hamilton obviously has; hence his finally deciding to contributing to right a decades-old wrong. And they are also aware of the story of Cain and Abel, and the way Cain murdered his brother Abel.
Hamilton is today attempting to facilitate some level of justice for a modern-day Abel, who was slaughtered by a modern-day Cain. So, not as a priest turned demon, but as a demon turned human is Hamilton giving his evidence before the Rodney COI.