THE Kaieteur News of Tuesday 28 October, 2014, carried the screaming headline, ‘Attorney General (AG) reveals plan to hit Glenn Lall, Kaieteur News’. My immediate reaction on reading the headline was one of alarm. The details of the article flowed from a conversation between a Kaieteur News reporter, Leonard Gildharie and the Attorney General, which the reporter recorded.

The AG contends that the conversation was distorted and manipulated and does not reflect his true dialogue. He has filed legal proceedings. The police are also investigating the authenticity and legality of the recording. However, I am writing on the assumption that the recording was lawful and accurately recorded and was a true recording of the conversation.
I read the published transcript of that telephone conversation as well as I listened to the audio recording. Any person with “an ounce of brain” who read that published transcript or listened to the audio recording would recognise immediately that the AG did not reveal “any plan” to hit Glenn Lall and the Kaieteur News.
It really takes a person with less than “an ounce of brain” to advance such a claim.
What then did the published transcript reveal? To understand the statements made by the AG, the context of the conversation between himself and the reporter must be taken into account. Essentially, the AG in this very private conversation with the reporter, was explaining that Glenn Lall was using his newspaper as a weapon to attack people and even innocent people were the subject of attacks and many without the ability to adequately or at all make appropriate responses to unjust attacks, may just walk into Kaieteur News office with a weapon and, “wha come suh do” in other words, what was being said is that if Kaieteur News persists in their attacks on the character and reputation of innocent people, then their continued denigration of those people would lead to catastrophic consequences. That was no more than a few or an opinion of a likely eventuality if the viciousness and vindictiveness being spewed daily from the pages of the Kaieteur News continue.
Right thinking members in this country, would not consider this as a wrong opinion. Former President Bharrat Jadgeo, Minister Irfaan Ali, Mr. Winston Brassington, the AG himself and a host of other public officials and prominent Guyanese have been victims of the vile and vulgar assault on their character, reputation and professionalism by the Kaieteur News. That newspaper’s feature column “dem boys seh” is the tool of its offensiveness. Probably intended to be a satirical column, it often openly names public officials and is marked by vulgar expressions, and a lewd, course style, reflective of the depressed minds responsible for it, and whom it may be said by deduction are possessed of less than “an ounce of brain.”
The public, will not however, be fooled. The difficulties faced by Glenn Lall for alleged infractions of the criminal law have been noted by such people in this country, who will examine the allegations for which he has been charged against his moralist and virtuous posturing. Much is known of Glenn Lall. With the fullness of time all will be revealed. He has used his newspaper to detract from the allegations of criminality, levelled against him. I make bold to say that his claims of a plan to shut down Kaieteur News and to kill him and his staff are only in his imagination. The man seems tortured by his present difficulties in the Courts. The call by his newspaper for public protest in support of his newspaper and for the establishment of a ‘Committee In Defence of Kaieteur News’ marks his vain expectation, that whatever support he can muster from among the less educated, and less informed among us may impact upon the likelihood of a favourable outcome for him in the course and in that state, he appears completely oblivious to the fact that neither sympathy nor public opinion, will be considered factors in the determination of his guilt or innocence.
That brings me to Khemraj Ramjattan, his lawyer and the leader of the AFC. It is understood that Ramjattan must aggressively represent his client to justify his fee, but this must not be done in the sacrifice of professional standards.

Physical defects notwithstanding, where does Ramjattan see in the public transcript, “a plan” that was revealed by the AG? It does appear that Ramjattan’s judgment, evident in his and his party’s call for the AG to resign, has been affected by political antagonism, rivalry, and no doubt, personal jealousy.
Gildharie was evidently, extremely deceitful to the AG. According to Glenn Lall, Gildharie recorded his conversation with the AG. Where was his decency; he never informed the AG that he would record the conversation. The phone call emanated from the AG. It was not a solicited interview. It was simply a private call.
Anyway, back to recording, the Bar Association and the Women Lawyers Association, “have observed that in the recording, the AG offered in vulgar and obscene language, knowledge of planned illegal activities.” How on earth could these supposedly trained legal minds, arrive at such a conclusion. It is troubling that these learned men and women have applied some so called conventions of “public discourse” to a private telephone conversation. If one’s character and professionalism is to be called into question because of the nature of one’s private conversation, then it could be asked, what about a professional who commits an act of rape for which he is not prosecuted but continues in his profession; should not his conscience and sense of morality guide him to appropriate action and should not his character and professionalism be called into question by those who know of his rape but, find it convenient to remain silent? What a hypocritical bunch.
There may be indiscretions that could be laid at the feet of the AG but, allegations of a threat to hit Glenn Lall and the Kaieteur News must be seen as nothing more than a puff of hot air.
RICHARD MENDOZA