Take the high road
—and repudiate violence and retaliation to provocations by divisionist and destructive forces
THE bodies of babies and their parents lay scattered in their own entrails and pooling blood in house after house. The rampage continued and bodies trailed in another community from the docks, throughout the streets, and right into the police station, where the protectors of the nation were unable to protect themselves from the carnage that left them slaughtered like helpless sheep, strewn, limbs askew, in the abandon of the eternal sleep of death. Even a sitting minister of the Government was not spared and he and his visiting siblings, along with a helpless guard, who was merely performing his duties as an employee trying to provide an honest living for his wife and eight little children, were brutally massacred.      These incidents did not happen in Rwanda, but in the paradise-like country of Guyana.
On January 26th 2008 gunmen mercilessly slaughtered Raywattie Ramsingh, Saleem Baksh, Clarence Thomas and his two children, Vanessa and Ron, Rooplall Seecharran, Shazad Mohamed, Seegobin Harilall, Seegopaul Harilall, Dhanrajie Seecharran, and Mohandia Gourdat. The bloodied bodies of children and their parents were discovered strewn in their respective homes after the carnage. Many others were seriously wounded in the massacre. Mere days after a gang of barbaric gunmen invaded the peaceful community of Bartica and replicated the Lusignan massacre, during which gunmen even invaded the police station and slaughtered off-duty policemen in their living quarters. One of the most hard-working and best-liked PPP ministers, Satyadeow “Sash” Sawh, who was relaxing in his hammock while enjoying the visit from his overseas-based siblings one evening after fulfilling his arduous duties for the day as agriculture minister, had his life brutally snuffed out by merciless gunmen. His siblings and guard were not spared as they also were mercilessly gunned down, leaving another PPP martyr and his family and employee lying in pools of their own blood.
A few years prior to these murderous forays, politically-driven criminals annexed the entire communities of Buxton and Agricola, with support from mavericks in the Guyana Defence Force (some of whom were eventually given sanctuary in the United States of America), and held the people of those communities to ransom for years while they carried out murderous forays against peaceful and productive citizens throughout the length and breadth of this country. Even die-hard PNC supporters, like Idris Carter and her family, who had the courage to speak out against the criminalization of their community, were terrorized and hounded out, with their lives and livings destroyed in the process.
Mothers wept in despair as politicians coerced their young sons into a life of crime that had no turning back, and many died like rabid dogs on the streets and in Guyana’s backlands, after being hounded from one hideout to another, while the politicians who had encouraged them to pick up  guns to rob instead of  shovels to farm lived their lives in luxury and absolute security from harm.
Today, visionary leaders such as Mboya Wood, Eric Phillips, Odinga Lumumba and others are teaching African Guyanese that empowerment does not mean taking a gun to hurt your fellow man, nor in burning down and looting the fruits of the labours of others, but in accepting that, while it is right and just to celebrate one’s heritage and the culture of one’s ancestors, there is a greater reality – that the future of every Guyanese lies in one’s own effort toward self-enhancement, and that, while Government has a duty to provide the facilitating mechanisms for upward mobility and the welfare of its citizens, it is an individual who has to chart his own destiny through the choices that he makes.
So while some members of ACDA and the opposition collective are encouraging their members to liberate their minds from hatred and instead develop their inherent potential for greatness of achievement, there are yet others who, conversely, are seeking to once more  return this country into the jaws of the monster of death and depravity, which they have always fostered and nurtured throughout the short history of this nation.      It is no surprise that the France-based organization, Reporters without Borders is supporting CN Sharma and opposition parties and their satellites who are intent in returning this country to dark days when murder and mayhem in the nation were incited at the behest of opportunistic politicians. This, disregarding the fact that CNS 12 continuously flout the laws of Guyana and allow programmes intended to incite internecine conflict, especially during this highly-sensitive period in time, to be aired repeatedly. The Government is adjuring its supporters to reject conflict of any kind, whatever the provocation, as in the instance of destruction to its billboards and other campaign materials.
However, the President has a duty to the citizens of this land to take measures – even punitive ones- to protect the citizens of the land from any type of violence, especially those that can be catalysed by incitement through media channels, as in the case of Rwanda. The sanction of CNS Channel 6 was an edict from the regulatory body mandated to scrutinize programme content and enforce the laws of the land; but the President graciously invited the protagonists for discussions before acting upon the advice of that body – not once, but several times.      But while he extended a hand to find a conflict-free resolution that would have minimum impact on the proprietors of CNS Channel 6, their operations and their employees, they were conversely grandstanding with their political affiliates to use their self-induced problems to denigrate the President, and to destroy the credibility of his good office.
It is not surprising that the collective opposition are using this situation to garner support against the government, because they have always fostered and supported illegality and criminality; and memories of notorious murderer and thief, Linden “Blackie” London being draped like a hero with the emblem of Guyana’s honour – the Golden Arrowhead, at a place that consecrates the memory of Kofi, a real national hero, still sears the soul of the nation. But there is a wave of change in the land, and stratagems to derail the momentum of unity and progress in the land are bound to fail, because the Guyanese people are not willing to be fooled any longer by opportunistic politicians. And a President, who had the courage to stand up to the EU, the great USA, and other powerful bodies – such as the Bretton Woods Institutions, in the interest of his people would certainly have no problem with telling the motley collective that comprises Reporters without Borders that Guyana will never be allowed to go the route of Rwanda, and, although freedom of the press is guaranteed in this country, irresponsible transgressions against these freedoms will not be tolerated if there is a threat to the peace and stability of the land and its peoples.