FROM THE DIASPORA … RODNEY COI, OPENING A “CAN OF WORMS” FOR THE PNC

May 04, 2014 News

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The PNC is worried, very worried, and has every right to be worried about disclosures emanating from the Rodney Commission of Inquiry; not that it’s anything new to older folks in Guyana and those in the Diaspora like myself.  They have for good and selfish reasons to worry about what more than half the voting population in Guyana is now learning about a period of Guyana’s history that they never experienced.
Today you read about how the PPP is undemocratic; how it’s a dictatorship, and to be honest some of the PPP behaviour brought this on. However young Guyanese are now learning what a true dictatorship was under the PNC, what a real police state Guyana was under PNC rule.
The PNC knew this inquiry would damage its image, so it sought to set the stage to discredit the Rodney COI early on by questioning the impartiality of the Guyana- born member of the Commission, and this week digging up a 34-year-old speech by the Chairman of the COI.
One does not have to be a scholar to know the findings of this COI will be very unfavorable to the PNC which calls itself APNU these days to escape the stigma attached to its dictatorial past.
Today there is a proliferation of foreign goods in stores, foodstuff overflows in supermarket shelves, cars clog the streets of Georgetown, and foreign artistes are practically in Guyana every week to perform.
What the young people are going to learn is that this was not so in the 70’s and 80’s. Today you can buy any number and kinds of bath soap. Back in the PNC days you were thankful when someone come from abroad and gave you a bar of Irish Spring Soap. It was that bad; bath soap was a scarce commodity.
They will learn that essential items like sugar, rice and cooking oil were scarce commodities. You spend nearly a half day in line to get a pint or two cooking oil, then while in the line you may hear that “sugar come in” at another distribution point, so you dispatch another family member to line up for sugar. This may sound unbelievable to the young, but that was life under the PNC.
Oh and don’t even try to store up supplies. If the police raid your home and find what they consider excess supply for your household, you were charged for hoarding. Folks went to jail for having too much foodstuff in their home. You were jailed if you were found in possession of banned stuff like a can of sardines, tomato paste, potatoes and onions. That was also life under the PNC.
Yes times were tough and people wanted a change. The opposition PPP was helpless, so here comes this brilliant Guyanese and political activist Dr.Walter Rodney, on the political scene. Here was a man who confronted, insulted, opposed, and was most likely to depose the PNC regime. Rodney was dangerous for the PNC. Why?
Rodney’s political meetings drew thousands of Guyanese from all walks of life all races. In Berbice he drew thousands of people in PPP strongholds on the Corentyne, and I would say more than Dr. Cheddi Jagan would attract at the time. Remember Guyana was a police state.
While his meetings would draw thousands, it would also draw PNC thugs who would disrupt the meetings, cut the PA systems wires, and beat up WPA supporters, with the police standing by watching. I t would seem as if the police were there to protect the PNC thugs instead of maintaining law and order.
This is not hearsay; as a reporter back then I witnessed this with my own eyes. I recalled one instance in New Amsterdam, where a WPA activist was stomped to the ground by PNC thugs in sight of the police. One particular person whom I knew, kicked the WPA activist without mercy while the poor man was lying helplessly on the ground. But you know what, Karma is bitch. Years later that very leg that did the kicking was paralyzed with a stroke; Karma.
All hope and inspirations for a change died that June in 1980. My hope for a better Guyana died too with his death. Two months later I was in the United States with my family.
And what does Rodney’s death and the United States have in common today? In Rodney days the PPP were clamoring for the US to intervene and bring democracy to Guyana. This week the PPP government revoked the visa of the head of a US democracy project in Guyana. What irony.
A project like this the PPP would have welcome with open arms when in the opposition, so many wondered why the opposition now.
The PPP is playing a dangerous game when they upped the ante with the revocation of the visa,  I wondered if they thought this one through, I always felt that the President is being given wrong advice by the Jagdeo entrenched clique around him. There is going to be serious retaliation, seen and unseen, by the US, be sure of that, it would be more subtle than cancelling visas.
Many in the PPP must be worried. If the PPP government falls, many would run to the US, and if the PPP loses, many Government officials will find their escape route blocked by the US.
My old departed friend and folklorist Wordsworth Mc Andrew would have sized up the situation like this “Don’t wake a sleeping tiger”.
Ralph Seeram can be reached at email: [email protected]

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