Bunga-bunga and zenga-zenga in Guyana

Jun 26, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The former Prime Minister of Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, has been sentenced to seven years in jail for having sex with an underage girl, just days after a book has been published on the Thomas Carroll visa affair in Guyana.
Berlusconi’s name tells the strange story of life. In Jamaica, the US badly wanted to arrest a cocaine trafficker by the name of ‘Dudus’ Coke. In Italy, one of the world’s most libidinous leaders has the word “lus” in his name. There can be no doubt about it; the amorous Italian politician was (or is) a lustful man.
Berlusconi became famous for his bunga-bunga parties, where nude bodies and pretty young girls swirl and intertwine in a kaleidoscope of psychedelic abandonment. Berlusconi received the art of bunga-bunga from across the Mediterranean Sea, in Libya. Bunga-bunga nights were known to be held in Tripoli, referred to in that country as zenga-zenga.
In fairness to the old, eccentric patriarch, Muammar, zenga-zenga affairs were patronized by his sons and not the old man. Chief financier of zenga-zenga in Tropoli was Muammar’s heir-apparent, Saif Al-Islam. For those who may not know, Saif paid Lionel Richie a million American dollars to sing three songs. The next year, he paid Beyoncé two million for the same amount of tunes. Saif is now in a prison fighting for his life.
The timing of the sentence of the bunga-bunga man in Italy coincided with the publication of a book on the Thomas Carroll affair in Guyana. How Carroll’s wife remained with him is a mystery. Thomas Carroll carried on bunga-bunga parties in Georgetown where young girls allowed themselves to be devoured on the altar of extravagant sex for a visa. By the time he was caught, Carroll had earned a reputation for accumulating money and young Guyanese girls.
There seems to be some uncanny connection between bunga-bunga revelry and visa selling in Guyana. In the eighties, a man and wife from Montreal, based in the consular section of the Canadian High Commission in Guyana, were jailed in Canada for selling visas. At the trial it was revealed that a local arranged group-sex parties at his home for the couple. Their activities contributed to the decision of the Canadians to move the consular section to Trinidad.
The US Embassy some years ago had a high-ranking visa officer who was a homosexual. He never sold visas, but his bunga-bunga parties got him into trouble and he was sent home before his tenure was up. Lots of homosexuals got visas from him, no doubt arranged at bunga-bunga sessions. Please note that these lines here do not imply any criticism of homosexuality.
The bunga-bunga bacchanalia of the French Canadian couple, Thomas Carroll, and the American visa officer, were school children parties compared to what happened after the rise of the narco-trade in Guyana and its friendship with the corridor of power. Bunga-bunga and zenga-zenga reached incredible levels of debauchery after the 2001 elections. They have continued since.
At these bunga-bunga, zenga-zenga escapades, drug kings, money launderers, powerful politicians and the nouveau riche, are seen in delectable enjoyment of each other’s company. In large Libya and Italy, the bunga-bunga, zenga-zenga nights did not go unnoticed.
How could they have remained hidden in a small place like Guyana? Security details, police ranks and traffic cops hardly keep to themselves what they see at bunga-bunga parties. If the American visa officer introduced a homosexual dimension to bunga-bunga in Guyana, then it became more pronounced after 2006.
From Pradoville One to Pradoville Two, bunga-bunga things are going on. There are times when zenga-zenga enjoyment move from Ogle to Leonora and Happy Acres. There are large mansions at these sites with swimming pool pyrotechnics. Some faces are always at the nocturnal games. It was Italy that gave us the phrase, “La Dolce Vita,” It was Italy again that gave us bunga-bunga.
Italy seems to have a fascination with nude bodies and young girls who bear it all. In the Caribbean, it may be no exaggeration to say that Guyana may be the capital for La Dolce Vita and bunga-bunga. Enjoyed of course by the drug boys, the corrupt politicians and their fat class business patrons, mind you, not the traditional petty bourgeoisie that you and I grew up seeing them earn their money the old-fashioned way.
Rather, they are the perverted nouveau riche that have taken over Cheddi Jagan’s party and who will probably tell you that Shakespeare is the name of a city in Latin America, that Adolf Hitler was a famous American president, and that Mother Teresa was the lead singer of a rock band. Ignorance and money go hand in hand.

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