CORRUPTION is the propaganda swan song of the combined Opposition. Collateral damage is the military term Khemraj Ramjattan used in the civilian context when they voted to prevent the Government from pursuing developmental projects of national importance to Guyana. Unconcerned about the lives and livelihood of our Amerindian Peoples, chosen public sector workers and professionals on contract with state agencies, the ‘Moses Scissors’ snipped and snapped with deep bitterness and deadly vengeance at the jugular of these targeted groups – Indians and Blacks – as if they were sub-species of the human kind. Indeed, according to the Leader of the AFC, they are people, but people whose lives are of no importance. They are expendable. They are collateral damage. Their lives and those who depend on them – mother, wife, father and children – are of no consequence, once the objectives of the AFC and their political collaborators, the PNCR’s APNU are achieved.
Corruption is often defined as wrong doing on the part of an authority or powerful party (organisation or individual) through means that are ‘illegitimate, immoral, or incompatible with ethical standards.’ Collateral Damage is an old terminology which regained prominence during the American invasion of Iraq in 1991, commonly referred to as the Gulf War. It is understood to mean damage to people or things that are incidental to the intended target. Those that are not involved, but who are ‘accidentally or unintentionally killed or wounded and/or having their property damaged as a result of the attack on legitimate enemy targets.’ The term Collateral Damage has been criticised in certain European quarters as ‘an inhuman euphemism…. abstract, agentless and affectless, so that even if people succeed in associating it with a real act or event they will be insulated from any feeling of repulsion and moral outrage.’ In actual fact, the airstrikes in the Iraqi city of Baghdad were referred to as Collateral Murder! Collateral Damage then is coined as an excuse for wholesale slaughtering of innocent men, women and children in the name of a greater good. It is a manipulation of the minds to free those committing murder, those who are the architects of the murderous acts, and public opinion ‘from the feeling of repulsion and moral outrage.’
It is said hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children were slaughtered. The country was brought to total ruin. Infrastructure was destroyed, bombed into the Stone Age. This is Collateral Damage. In Guyana’s context, it basically means, burning and looting businesses, destroying property and killing innocent people, raping our innocent girl children (and given the new trend recently exposed, I dare say little boys also). The legitimate target for the AFC and their collaborators, the PNC’S APNU are the Government, the ruling party and all Guyanese who dare speak up for progress. There is nothing incidental or accidental here. Every action is coldly calculated with military precision and is result oriented. These are the fingerprints of decisive military minds and that of those who have brought their legal training into abject disrepute, shameless and conniving. When taken into context, one cannot help but wonder if this is Khemraj Ramjattan’s vision and intention for Guyana and Guyanese if he and his political cohorts in the PNC’s APNU do not get their way!
But then it must be remembered, it is the tree that bears the most fruit that will be pelted most! The Government has been delivering. The more they deliver; greater is the cry of corruption! Are you seeing the drift?
Corruption is the political subterfuge behind which the AFC and the PNC’S APNU hope to be crowned Kings. It is a failed, baseless and legally unproven political strategy which has pushed both the AFC and the PNC’S APNU to desperation with their backs against the proverbial wall. It is a strategy aimed at sensationalising and playing on the emotions of people. It is dangerous.
They have come to a dead end! The corruption bandwagon is a myopic and desperate political strategy with no legal standing. It has not and cannot be tested in court because all the claims of corruption made against the Government are based on speculations, uninformed opinions, political subjectivism, here say, rumours and of course fabrications. Not an iota of fact has been presented to substantiate their propagandistic claims. It is more a psychological strategy aimed at appealing to the minds of people knowing fully well that the average human being is never satisfied or contented with what he or she has. It is playing on their baser instincts and emotions. This is universal. It is not a Guyanese phenomenon. Kudos for the AFC and the PNC’s APNU! They are a smart bunch, but their collective political half-slip is exposed! Given that this may be so, it does not mean that the allegations of corruption may not have some degree of validity. But this is the political hardball. Prove it! Being accused of buggery does not mean one is guilty or innocent as accused! Prove innocence! Prove guilt!
Strange it is that the same ones (PNCR in the APNU guise) who brought the country to its knees and the ones who invented the terms corruption, nepotism, bribery and kickbacks; who drained the state’s coffers, squander and spent as though it was their personal money until they finally brought the country to its knees, bankrupt and insolvent, are the ones now shouting foul from the top of Mount Roraima! They stole until there was nothing left to thief. The country went to the dogs. Today the coffers are full and running over. And once more they are chomping at their bits, salivating with expectations behind the corruption bandwagon just to get their hands once more in the money jar. Friday’s Editorial dealt with the wrong doings of the AFC and the PNC’s APNU through means that are ‘illegitimate, immoral, or incompatible with ethical standards,’ corruption at the individual and organisational levels. These are incontestable facts. A few are in the Courts right now. Mind you these were not brought by politicians or government officials, but by civilians! In one instance of desperation, people or organisation associated with the accused, even attempted to pay the accuser three million dollars to say he was instigate by the ruling party! Indeed desperate people will resort to desperate and dangerous acts.
In the AFC’s leader’s mad pursuit of Collateral Damage they wielded the ‘Moses Scissors’ with painful results for the people in 2012, 2013 and 2014! More than one billion Guyana dollars were voted down from the Amerindian Development Fund in 2014. Close to two hundred Amerindian communities suffered as a result. They nearly brought the country into a pariah’s status with the international community by voting down the Anti-money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism Bill. And so too, did the ‘Moses Scissors’ ripped through the University of Guyana Student Loan Scheme which would have denied assistance to the young people of this country who aspire to educate themselves just like the leaders in the AFC! The biggest con game, which will be dealt with in another editorial, was the voting down of the Amaila Hydro Electric Project. Their very existence as a political grouping and that of the PNCR’s APNU were tied to that project. This is the Collateral Damage – at the expense of Guyana and Guyanese – the AFC’s leader has been so doggedly, deceitfully and decisively pursuing together with his political collaborators in the PNCT’s APNU.

ROHAN SINGH