Dear Editor,

I WRITE in response to the recent PPP press conference of Monday last conducted by Mr. Clement Rohee. Mr. Editor, Rohee’s flippancy is astonishing.The average Guyanese must be shocked by his recent statements in the local media that the PPP’s best explanation for not launching an investigation into Satyadeow Sawh’s murder was that “we didn’t get to it.” He stated that no government “gets” to everything in its manifesto. This argument is a logical fallacy: reductio ad absurdum!

Was investigating the countless murders that paralysed our nation for the first decade of this century just another manifesto promise? Someone in the PPP hierarchy must see the brazenness of this position. This was your own minister! Is “let the chips fall where they may” the PPP’s position on matters as imperative to national security and leadership as this? One hopes not!

I would point the finger at the honourable Mr. Rohee with greater seriousness for his pussyfooting around the absence of an inquiry, but a simple check of the archives has shown me an entirely new layer of surprise: Rohee was not even the Minister of Home Affairs in April 2006, it was Ms. Teixeira. It seems that Rohee does not even know the range of his time in office – no wonder he can’t recollect why there was no inquiry.
Two wrongs don’t make a right, and the coalition’s failure to move faster on an inquiry into Sawh’s murder, and the terror of that era in Guyana’s history, cannot be tolerated for much longer. However, at least it was a manifesto promise of the coalition. Getting to the bottom of things is taking far too long, and Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan should avoid walking in Rohee’s footsteps. On a final note, I return to Mr. Rohee; why do the local media tolerate such absurd answers to serious questions? Surely our press can do better than to find satisfaction from an answer as hollow as his. Democracy is in the media’s care, and if it is not monitored properly, it will become warped.
Yours in astonishment,
Basdeo Ramdhan