BURNHAM’S death anniversary is next Tuesday, and I am not waiting for next Tuesday to assess his hegemony. I will start it as soon as I complete this Friday column here. My contention is that in his control of the economy of Guyana, African Guyanese did not expand their safety net under Burnham but in fact that net became porous even when the economy between 1968 and 1975 should have provided for an endurable future. African Guyanese were superficially empowered under Burnham

Emancipation 2024 just went by and when it comes again next year, it will occur right in the middle of a national election campaign and in that volatile ambience, the betrayal of African Guyanese by their leaders will be laid bare for the entire world to see.
It is not only betrayal these leaders will be accused of but their dismissal of the learning capacity of African Guyanese will be explained not only by PPP politicians but intellectuals too who have seen this contempt between 2015 and 2020
The way African Guyanese elites have insulted African Guyanese is one of the most shameless mistreatments in ethnic politics anywhere in the world. The country is currently witnessing the election fraud trial. What is taking place there puts some of these elites in a social category of useless humans.

So far, in the trial, Guyana was told that Mingo, the returning officer for Region Four was using a spread sheet that did not reflect on the statements of poll. But let us quote an African Guyanese man who says he speaks for African Guyanese.
His name is Henry Jeffrey. Jeffrey accused the PPP of rigging the 2020 election. He said the percentage of fraud in the 10 Regions of Guyana was as follow (R is for Region) – R1- 34. 6%; R2, 74.8%; R3, 67.9 %; R4, 55.4; R 5, 50.5%; R6, 77.4; R7, 70.5%; R9, 53.7%; R10, 17% (he offered no statistics for Region 8).

This man wrote that asininity for African Guyanese to digest in 2022 and still clings to this fictional miasma. He is incapable of understanding that African Guyanese are not stupid people. Even a 10-year-old will ask two questions that Jeffrey cannot answer. First- where were Chief Election Officer, Keith Lowenfield and his Deputy, Roxanne Myers when this colossal fraud was taking place? Secondly, how come two days after the election, the CEO certified the results for nine regions?

This kind of written material composed specially for African Guyanese is tantamount to the complete dismissal of the intellectual capacity of African Guyanese. But more dangerously, it plays with the mind of those who accept Jeffrey’s mambo-jumbo.
If the former head of the army was the president, his deputy was former head of army intelligence, one of the ministers was the former police chief, and the president’s adviser was a former army chief in March 2020 when the election was held, and the opposition PPP had the phenomenal capacity to tamper with the entire election, then why would any sane African Guyanese go out next year and vote when that very PPP is in power?

These are the kinds of deportment from the African elites that insult African Guyanese. Which African Guyanese from the bosom of their heart believe that Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton, was right to refuse President Ali’s hands on two occasions? They don’t and they have shown respect for the president because they know the president showed humility by extending his hand.

We haven’t touched the issue yet in this column of betrayal. So we come to last Wednesday’s episode of the Freddie Kissoon Show where former AFC parliamentarian and head of the Leonora athletic track and the D’Urban Park project, Trevor Williams told viewers that in the APNU+AFC government there was little respect for the world of the ordinary African in Guyana.

Williams says it was unbelievable that in an endeavour in Guyana where Africans shine and predominate – sport – that the ANPU+AFC government removed the Ministry of Sport and downgraded it to a department within another ministry.
Williams was absent from the public sphere the past four years, but has now chosen to speak his mind in which he challenged the credentials of those who claim to be leaders of African Guyanese.

We close with one of the most jarring insults to African Guyanese. To date, not one PNC leader has done the morally right thing and offered an explanation, no matter how brief but an explanation nevertheless of why the amendment to the law in relation to possession of marijuana was not passed. Some 99 per cent of the young men jailed for small grams of weed since 1988 has been African.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.