Bring closure to this story, Mr. Green!

Oct 21, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Mr. Hamilton Green has been quite active on the pro-democracy front these days. He is garrulous on many issues. All the subjects seem to relate to the PPP Government’s continuing assault on the democratic process. One gets badly tangled up as one reads the lamentations of Mr. Green.

You are in two minds as to what to make of these cries of someone whose record was as bad as those he now challenges.

Two wrongs never make a right. Not because under Mr. Green’s authority there were excesses should one excuse the PPP’s truculence.

Hard as it is to accept the indictment of Mr. Green of the PPP’s sixteen-year rule, his lamentations are valid. There are just too many violations of democratic norms under the present government. Mr. Green points to an ocean of mischief. If we get inside his head, one can understand the way he feels.

I know there are political and policy perversities, some of which are of a macabre nature, that this society didn’t see under Burnham and perhaps would not have been tolerated by Burnham. The list would make long reading.

What happened during the Great Flood of 2005? How such a disaster could have escaped a Commission of Inquiry. Was it not due to a breach of the conservancy? Would the PPP have kept its mouth shut if the Great Flood had occurred under Burnham?

When Mr. Green sees the onslaught of corruption by low-level officials he must have suffered a thousand heart attacks.

Each time, a sickening act of corruption takes place and some little party underling gets protection Mr. Green must be doing a Sanford thing, saying; “Forbes, Forbes, this is the big one: I’m coming to join you.”

Mr. Burnham would not have allowed the runaway kleptocracy that is practised by party princes and princesses who could hardly be described as people who have made a contribution to national development.
Hammie must be cussing up non-stop when he saw what happened to Hinckson, Benschop and Waddell.

He must have said to himself, “And these people say that Burnham was a dictator.” Mr. Green was a Government Minister when the PPP protested the National Security Act. Now we have under the PPP Government, a Bill that allows the police to spy on Guyanese citizens.

One must wait to see if Mrs. Jagan will condemn this pernicious act of authoritarian rule in her Mirror column because she has gone on record in that very column of condemning similar legislation in the US. The difference with Guyana and the US is that Jagdeo could get away with it while Bush had to back down.

With each passing day, Mr. Green must be wondering which country he is living in. His daily mantra must be; “And they say Burnham was a dictator.” That ‘they” refers not only to the PPP but to all of us who despised what Burnham did to Guyana.

Well, I am sorry to say “Hammie”, that even though I know your condemnations of the Jagdeo presidency and the wider PPP Government contain a high percentage of accuracy, and that I could understand your chant that after all the PPP is doing how could people say that Burnham was a dictator, the truth is, Mr. Burnham was a dictator.

My humble suggestion to you, Mr. Green, is that if you are going to secure some image and credibility for yourself as the PPP’s rule further degenerates and you continue to speak out, then the only option is for you to apologise to all those citizens of Guyana, wherever they are, who are over forty-five years of age for what your government did to Guyana.

This is an inescapable route. I could only speak for myself. I do not belong to any political party and therefore I am speaking on my own behalf.

I am saying here and now that for me, I cannot see how you can be accepted at the national level as a credible critic of the Jagdeo Government without accounting for the very things your government did when it was in power.

Your refusal to do so has profound moral implications. If the Jagdeo Government is wrong to victimise public servants, then it was wrong for your Government to do what it did to many other public servants whose names are too many to mention.

I would suggest you take out a full page advertisement in the two independent dailies and apologise to the people of this country for the terrible wrongs the Burnham Government did. You owe it to history to do that.
Do it now Mr. Green. It is the only road that you can walk. It is an unavoidable pathway.

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