Dear Editor,
AS has become the opposition’s tradition in this country, they latched on to every issue affecting citizens of this country and used them as catalysts to boost their relevance and give some sort of raison d’etre for their continued moribund political existence.

Recently, they attempted to use the rice farmers Black Bush Polder for political mileage and this backfired in such an explosive manner that the farmers turned back and had a hearty laugh when the Agriculture Minister made one of his numerous visits to the area. The rice farmers will never forget the utterance of the former President who labelled them and private businesses which must fend for themselves and make their business viable, yet Messrs Ramjattan and Hughes have the temerity to offer to fight for $2 billion in Parliament as a subsidy for them. They are always generous when they are not in government.

However, the crème de la crème is the Melissa Atwell issue. This is a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement issue which is in line with the US Government’s deportation policies but the Opposition in Guyana has twisted this to involve the PPP/C Government. They claimed that this Government played a vital role in ICE’s detention of Atwell. If so be the case then the government of all the countries whose citizens have been deported should be blamed for their deportation.

There are people in the US who are literally in hiding are have assumed a low profile so that they do not become targets of ICE’s radar and if Atwell feels that she as a US ‘citizen’ can make herself visible on the social media, then it is her own doing which brought her to her current condition. If she is indeed a US citizen then she has absolutely nothing to fear and the Judge will rule accordingly as long as she has not broken any US law, immigration or otherwise. Furthermore, as VP Jagdeo had pointed out, the PPP does not control US ICE. This has conveniently escaped the intelligence of the Opposition.

Now to examine the spurious claims of the APNU/AFC which they have been peddling to its dwindling support base. Norton claimed that Atwell ‘exposed crime and corruption’ by the PPP/C Government. If this is so then why are the perpetrators not charged and brought before the Courts, in fact Norton should use these claims to his advantage. As far as I know Atwell has a few defamation suits brought against for the same ‘crimes and corruption’ she so exposed. If she is deported to Guyana for whatever reason (s) she will have a great opportunity to defend her allegations which she claimed to be factual and evidence-based. But as usual, Norton exposed the true intention of the ‘social media war’ which is referred to as ‘another phase in the struggle’ to remove the PPP from Office. It would seem that the ballot is a failed option.

In the same vein, the AFC, struggling to grab some publicity, issued a statement which stated that the arrest of Atwell in the USA will have a ‘serious impact on national efforts to expose corruption and unlawful conduct in Guyana’. Again, if Atwell does have the evidence to back her ‘claims’ then the AFC should encourage her to come to Guyana and with the support of the AFC’s leader bring these up in the courts of law. In addition, I would like to see these claims of ‘crimes and corruption’ be detailed by both the APNU and the AFC and made public to add some semblance of credibility and allow the public court of opinion to also make an assessment. Nigel Hughes is a competent lawyer.

It’s time the ‘corruption mantra’ is laid to rest. Unfortunately, in this Election year, this is another feeble attempt by the opposition to use an ICE immigration matter for political relevance since they cannot stand on their own track record.

Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf