DAVID Granger now calls the Ballot Box Martyrs “gangsters”. Mr. Nagamootoo, Mr. Ramjattan, and Dr. Rupert Roopnarine stood silent and unmoved by this new history told by a so-called historian. Mr. Granger happened to be around as a senior Army personnel at the time, and as a senior Army personnel pledged allegiance to the then PNC. At the time, the Army saw its role as an instrument of the PNC. 

The more David Granger speaks, the more he exposes himself and his sinister plan for our country. David Granger is a dangerous man, consumed with a military plan for Guyana, and we must stay clear of this man. My statement is personal. I was a young man in 1973 when ballot boxes from the Corentyne were taken by the Army; when PPP polling agents were banned from accompanying the boxes; when boxes were exchanged along the Number 19 Road; and when two young men were slaughtered by the Army at Number 63.
I, along with many other young people, with our families, was in front of the Albion Community Centre watching the Army terrorising people. I saw ladies crying and old men dropping to the ground as they saw the symbol of their freedom; their votes, being taken possession of by the Army. I knew then what freedom meant to people; it was as important as their lives. As those ballot boxes were being taken away, it was as if their hearts were being ripped out of their bodies. But I saw this with a bayonet on my head. Other young men had bayonets on their heads, as the Army ensured that their trucks departed the Albion Community Centre with the people’s votes to complete the thieving of the people’s freedom.
Earlier that day, I was told that I had voted by proxy. It was my first time voting, and I was denied that privilege and right. I had gone with my dad, mom and brother. According to the officials at the Polling Station at the Albion Community Centre, my dad was listed as deceased and therefore could not vote. My mom and brother had already voted, according to the officials. It was not amusing to find out also that my grandfather, who had died in 1962, eleven years before, had appeared earlier in the day and voted. Ghosts came back to vote, and the living died and did not know they did.
This is no tale, and as much as I would like for it to be a tale, it is a traumatic experience that I will take to my grave. Nothing would ever ease the pain I felt on that day. Restoration of democracy in 1992 allowed me and others to move on in a free country, but the excruciating agony of that day lingers. In recent times, my fear has heightened, as I see the enormous efforts being made by some to take us back to those dark days.
I am saddened and frightened by the temerity of David Granger in now calling the Ballot Box Martyrs “gangsters”. This man is not remorseful for the ills and the crime committed by his Party and by the Army of that time. He was then, and for a long period of other rigged elections, a senior member and at times head of the Army. He is now the leader of the party that centrally directed the criminal activities of the then Army. He is, in many ways, intricately linked to those crimes, both by the positions he held then, and the positions he holds now.
In case anyone wants to chastise me for bringing up the past, it was not my intention to bring up the story of the ‘Ballot Box Martyrs’. But when Mr. Granger deems my brothers as “gangsters”, he placed this issue on the table, and I will not be silent.
At the same time, as Mr. Ramjattan and leaders of the AFC ask Guyanese to forget the past and to forgive, Mr. Granger insists that nothing wrong was done. He regales the performance of the Army at the time two young brothers were murdered. Blood is on the hands of those in charge of the Army at the time, and the PNC. As long as I live, past and present leaders of the PNC must take ownership of that crime. Far from being remorseful for the killing of two young brothers, Mr. Granger now adds to the shame by first boasting that the Army behaved professionally and took appropriate actions, and secondly by insisting that the young men were “gangsters”.
The fear I feel is that people who have not learnt from the past and whose past is being now portrayed by them as exemplary want to be our leaders. They give clues every day that they cannot wait to take us back to those dark days. The ‘Ballot Box Martyrs’ remain our heroes, even if Mr. Granger calls them “gangsters”. Yet this same Mr. Granger did not see anything wrong when Mr. Hoyte, one of his predecessors in the PNC, draped the coffin of a notorious criminal with the flag of Guyana.
The perversity of deeming freedom fighters as “gangsters”, and criminals as worthy of having their coffins draped with a Guyana Flag cannot and must not escape decent and right-minded Guyanese. With Mr. Granger’s logics, he must consider people like Walter Rodney, Father Darke, Koama and others as “gangsters” too.
Mr. Ramjattan and Mr. Nagamootoo must tell the people of Corentyne when next they go there that they support Mr. Granger when he claims that the ‘Ballot Box Martyrs’ were “gangsters”. Mr. Nagamootoo wrote many articles and made many speeches hailing the heroism of the ‘Ballot Box Martyrs’. I know Mr. Nagamootoo was the main speaker at least once at the annual homage the PPP makes to the site of the heinous murders of our young brothers, who were not only shot but left to bleed to death. I know he was there several other times as we celebrated the lives of Freedom Fighters. Mr. Ramjattan spent many of his formative years hailing the sacrifice of these martyrs.
They stood silent and looked at their new lord and master as if he was revealing a new truth. But that has become their new game; if people will not forget, let us re-write and re-engineer the past. These men and Dr. Rupert Roopnarine are free to exercise their free will to join in any political movement, thanks to the freedom we enjoy today because of the PPP-led fight for freedom and democracy in Guyana. I will defend their right to join any political party they want, even if I think they are misguided and totally wrong.
But they are not free to abandon the truth or re-engineer the truth; they know that the young men were murdered. I know that it is useless to ask Mr. Granger to apologise to our people, since he is consistent in denying any wrong-doing, and has always insisted that the Army never murdered anyone or helped to rig elections.
But I can ask Mr. Nagamootoo, Mr. Ramjattan and Dr. Roopnarine to unequivocally say that they share the view of Mr. Granger. Do you gentlemen agree with Mr. Granger that the ‘Ballot Box Martyrs’ were “gangsters”?
Is this the future you now promise our people? A future where those heinous behaviours of the army would now represent the best we can offer our people? There should be no “ifs, ands and buts”. Tell us clearly, do you agree with Mr. Granger? Yes or no?

DR. LESLIE RAMSAMMY