GUYANESE are a peaceful people. We take great pride in the fact that despite our cultural and ethnic diversity, we continue to live in a state of peace and harmony.

This is exactly what our foreparents would have wanted for us. Regardless of how they came to our shores, there was one thing that bonded them all: that vision of a future society in which there is peace, tolerance and prosperity for all.

As a society we have come a long way in realising the dreams and aspirations of our foreparents. Indeed, in many respects, we are a model society when it comes to our collective sense of respect for diversity and our ability to peacefully co-exist.

This is why any attempt at disrupting our peace and tranquility cannot be taken lightly. Only recently the police had cause to reprimand an opposition politician for allegedly attempting to project a narrative that could create a wrong impression regarding the professionalism and integrity of the police force.

The Guyana Police Force, in a recent release, drew attention to a Facebook post purportedly  emanating from a senior APNU+AFC functionary Ms. Annette Ferguson, regarding the setting up of a ‘death squad’ and a ‘Black clothes group’, which according to the police could be considered a cybercrime.

According to the ministry’s press release, Minister Robeson Benn has condemned, ‘in the strongest possible terms, the malicious, incendiary and delusional attempts to bring the security forces into disrepute; to target individuals in those services and to foment mischief and misrepresentations with respect to the policies and programmes of the PPP/C government in its efforts to improve safety and security throughout Guyana.’

When it comes to the law, there are no ‘holy cows.’ The police, in keeping with its mandate to serve and protect, arrested Ferguson after an objection was raised by a senior officer of the  Guyana Defence Force who was named in the Facebook post. In came the Opposition Leader Joseph Harmon who, without the benefit of the facts, condemned the action of the police and accused the PPP/C administration of ‘dictatorial and authoritarian acts of political persecution meted out to opposition members of Parliament.’ The opposition leader accused the PPP/C of ‘pushing this nation to the brink of civil unrest’ and issued a warning that the PPP will have to bear the full burden of responsibility for whatever ensues.

These utterances are not in keeping with the norms of civilised discourse. Indeed, they can have a polarising, if not incendiary effect on a society that has already been fed more than its fair share of misinformation and a false narrative of electoral fraud by the political opposition.

Guyanese are tired of such baseless and irresponsible behaviour on the part of the leadership of the APNU+AFC.  Harmon, as leader of the oposition, has a constitutional duty and a responsibility to uphold the rule of law and to come clean with his supporters and the Guyanese people. By continuing to describe the PPP/C as an ‘installed regime’ and as practising ‘political persecution,’ he and his party cohorts seem unwilling to come to terms with our democratic culture and the reality of governmental changes based on the principle of majoritarian rule.