Dear Editor,
EVERY time one reads a letter in the press authored by Hamilton Green, one is more struck with disbelief at the audacity of this gentleman. His most recent letter was captioned ‘Hamilton Green wants an end to this exploitation’.First, in his ramblings, he expresses his displeasure at still carrying the name of the European slave master and not that of his noble ancestors. Oh please! If he were indeed that troubled by his English name all of his eighty-plus years on this earth, then it would have been quite simple for him to have a deed of change of name effected, allowing him to become Mzwaga Dandada or some other name of his ‘nobel ancestors’ that he chooses.

There was no need for him to propagate the wrong name for generations to come.

Secondly, he draws attention to the horrors of the African Slave Trade, which was beneficial to some but damaging for centuries. How noble this sounds; but, then again, his exploitation of the members of the House of Israel, among so many others, for so many decades, hardly differs when one looks at the servitude he subjected them to.

He then launches into a long-winded diatribe about the damage being done to our environment, the wanton destruction of our country, pointing to the ‘tons’ of gold leaving Guyana and the extraction of logs. He then suggests a halt be put to all mining for gold and diamonds and an end be put to all timber extraction for an agreed period, particularly by the overseas so-called investors, who have little concern that our children will inherit an ugly hinterland.

Again, very righteous-sounding but so very impractical. Where would he find employment for the hundreds, if not thousands, of miners and loggers from the interior? At the Central Housing and Planning Authority, where he has already had a lot of his cohorts employed? Or is the plan for them to join the profusion of bandits already terrorizing Guyana?

He then calls for a full study to come out with a clear policy and strict rules for the exploitation of the country’s precious non-renewable resources, claiming that the early pork-knockers did not assault our rivers and creeks; and that they must be turning in their graves seeing the dirty streams which were once clear, clean rivers, creeks and lakes; and that now not even reptiles can go into the rivers, creeks and lakes; and that fish and trees have been destroyed forever.

But what about the filth and muck that built up in Georgetown during the twenty-one-year period that he ruled the capital city as Mayor?
Did he not owe it to our children and their children to stop the debauching of the ‘Garden City’? Such hypocrisy is beyond belief.
Sincerely,
MARK ROOPAN