Dear Editor,
FOLLOWING the five months of attempted electoral fraud between March and July 2020, and intense but flimsy judicial litigation, the PNCR-led APNU+AFC government failed in a most heinous attempt to usurp power.

Now, part of the cabal that misused public funds in its sojourn for five years as Guyana’s government, the PNCR has resumed their thirst for power.

At the WPA’s recent public meeting at Buxton, the narrative adopted by some of its long-standing headhunters such as David Hinds and Tacuma Ogunseye is a call to uproot the democratically elected PPP/C government with the armed services through violence.

As we all heard, the call to arms a few days ago was spearheaded by no other that Mr Ogunseye, who once labelled the five criminals in the notorious 2001 jailbreak as freedom fighters.
Further, he embellished the murderous East Coast Demerara carnage (2001-2005), as an African liberation movement!

For someone who spent four years in jail under the PNC regime to do a back somersault implies a confused mindset.

In 1993, I was with Mr Ogunseye on a panel at the US Embassy to discuss the progress and policies of the PPP/C government with former radio and TV broadcaster Kit Nascimento, who made the lead presentation. Mr Ogunseye’s contribution was as bizarre and ludicrous as his most recent call to use violence to remove the PPP/C government from power.

The example of history is replete with failed coups because for coups to succeed the people in the country where it took place must support the new leaders.

However, in almost all the countries, the new regime served as a mere replica of its predecessor, thus precipitating protracted civil wars. If democracy was the driving force of these WPA point-men, then their energies should have been directed at the brutal PNC dictatorship that ravaged and impoverished Guyana for 28 years.

On the issue of kith & kin, it is relevant to indicate that Afro-Guyanese, along with their Indo-Guyanese brethren, are enjoying the greatest period in Guyana’s economic development.

Today, Guyana’s per capita income is much higher than when the previous government departed office. Many are of the opinion that a return of the PNC to power will not only fail to manage the economy, but will also provide poor and lacklustre governance that could lead to chaos and ruin the gains accumulated in their absence from power.

In conclusion, those who are inciting others to use arms to topple the government have directed their energies in the wrong place. No one will benefit from such reckless, offensive, and insensible statements. It is relevant to quote the old Swahili proverb: When elephants fight it is the grass that gets trampled.

Yours respectfully,
Leyland Chitlall Roopnaraine