AS a young adult in Guyana I weighed 110 pounds because of the limited amount of food that was available to me in the 1980’s. This was because food of any kind was in short supply. The PNC/APNU wanted to starve Berbicians into submission because of their support for the PPP.During that dark PNC era, Berbicians tried to supplement their food supplies by going to Suriname and bringing back sardines, potatoes, salt fish, peas and other basic food items. These were considered ‘contra bands’, the equivalent of the possession of cocaine, and punishable by fines and jail times.
To punish Berbicians even further, the PNC (now APNU) installed toll gates. These were installed to further penalise an already malnourished population. But to further insist on showing their hatred, the PNC/APNU installed 3 toll gates in the Corentyne area.
The toll gates were used not only to extort money from an impoverished section of the population but to seize food items coming from across the border and to intimidate the people of the Corentyne.
The toll gates were used to stop and frisk everyone who travelled on the public road. The women were forced to stay away from travelling on the public road to save themselves from the embarrassment of being fondled by the thugs guarding the toll gates.
I am once again being threatened by Moses and the PNC/APNU that I should not remember those horrible days. I am further afraid that if I do not inform the current generation of the horrors I suffered by people like David Granger that I would have neglected my responsibility as a human being. Let my experience serve as a guide to what can happen again if you let yourself be fooled by Moses and his new found friends. Say never again to anyone who tells you to forget the past.
Unlike so-called Guyanese leaders, on March 7, 50 years after ‘Bloody Sunday’, Obama called Selma a place where the meaning of America was defined.
Standing at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Atlanta in the U.S, the American president went on to describe how civil rights activists were beaten and tear-gassed so many decades ago.
Americans continue to remember the sacrifice that was made by previous generations so that they could enjoy a safer and prosperous country.
Let your history serve you to its fullest.

GANESH PERSAUD
(Skeldon)