LAST year, former AFC leader and former Minister of Natural Resources, Raphael Trotman, published a 55-page book entitled, “From Destiny to Prosperity.” In it, he disclosed that he spent 28 years in politics. He said the following words in the preface: “I have decided to write…lest the history of what transpired indelibly becomes someone else’s version of the truth”

But there is absolutely nothing in Mr. Trotman’s book that is even his version. There is only one thing that is revealed; that after the APNU+AFC secured election victory in May 2015, he was not awarded a Cabinet post. Last year, in an interview on the Freddie Kissoon-Gildarie Show, his party colleague, Dominic Gaskin, contradicted that position. So which version is the correct one?

Mr. Trotman is still to tell us about truths that will enrich Guyana’s historiography. These truths are like horses at the stable door waiting to bolt out. In his book, he described David Granger as a great president. If Mr. Granger was a great president then all the heads of government in all the countries of the world are great too.

Missing in the book is Mr. Trotman’s explanation as to why he was the biggest name in his party and still was not awarded a Cabinet post. So who was dishing out ministerial positions in the AFC after the AFC came to power? Was it the party’s executive or one person? There are no truths told by Mr. Trotman as to the ignominy attached to the end of his political career where he supported his coalition colleagues in a blatant attempt to influence the result of the 2020 national election.

I have seen all the rigged elections under Burnham and the one under Desmond Hoyte in 1985 but the one in 2020 was the most demonic and insane version of rigged election since the fraud began in 1968. Mr. Trotman better write his truths quickly before they become someone else’s versions.

In 2023, a name, Mangal-Joly irritated me. She is someone who lives in another country and maybe never saw Guyana. She wrote the following words last year from the shores of another country after the police intervened in a protest in Berbice: “These actions remind me of what I have been experiencing and witnessing first hand since 2021, with the psychologically hostile way the State has been responding to legitimate concerns….”

The question is why she began her visibility check in 2021 when 2020 should have been the year of visual boldness for Mangal-Joly, but apparently her eyes were wide-shut from March to July 2020. In that year, there were five months of vicious and degenerate attempts to contort the legitimate results of the elections so as to allow for the continuation of the APNU+AFC in power.

Having lost the election after the intervention of the international community, elements in the PNC chose the path of post-election violence, a pattern the PNC started in 1992. They instigated wide spread violence in Cotton Tree in Region Five and innocent Indian people were beaten and their properties destroyed. I can only assume that maybe Mangal-Joly at the time was in Timbuktu.

Perhaps the most irritatingly laughable name in 2023 was a woman named Karen De Souza. I am still to fathom the depths of this comicality. It has to go down as the greatest circus that ever visited Guyana. No one can comprehend this madness. Ms. De Souza issued a press release on behalf of her group, Red Thread.

The press release stated that Red Thread was informed by Mikhail Rodrigues –aka- Guyanese Critic that a wealthy businessman paid a hit man $10 million and he will come in a white Toyota vehicle to harm Red Thread and attack the US Embassy. That is not where the comicality lies. In the press statement, Ms. De Souza indicated that Red Thread does not know the businessman or has ever mentioned his name in their activities.

Can any human on Planet Earth explain this hilarity to the Guyanese people? If Red Thread did not know the man and never mentioned the man’s name in any form whatsoever, then cascading commonsense should have informed Ms. De Souza why the man would pay someone $10 million to harm Red Thread. That was not the end of the circus. Ms. De Souza lamented the non-action of the police and a set of usually silent women groups then called upon the police to investigate.

The hard-pressed Guyana police force must investigate a prank played on Red Thread. 2023 ended with another prank. GHK Lall wrote it was no laughing matter that someone tried to harm Travis Chase. It was no laughing matter that the circus had too many clowns in 2023.