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WAS A RANSOM PAID?
We must all be relieved and happy that the girl who was reportedly kidnapped has been returned to her family. But both the girl and her relatives have an obligation to inform the public whether any ransom was paid or any deal struck to secure her freedom.
There are other families with children who are concerned as to what can happen to their loved ones. There are many persons out there who are worried that a kidnapping gang is on the loose and that someone close to them may be the next victim.
While everyone should be happy that the girl is safe at home and free from the clutches of those who snatched her, there will be no comfort for other parents until those who abducted the girl and those who may have assisted in her abduction are caught and brought to justice.
Just how the girl managed to secure her freedom is still a bit hazy. This newspaper upon learning about the girl being at the East La Penitence Police Station rushed down to the outpost and was able to capture the picture of the girl being embraced by an obviously relieved father. Other media houses also got pictures of the girl. One got a picture of the girl at home. In both instances she seemed in good spirits given the ordeal she must have endured.
She was obviously elated to be reunited with her father. In fact, the Kaieteur News photograph showed her clutching onto her father’s shirt as if she did not want to let him go. It was a touching photograph
The girl indicated that she was not ill-treated during her abduction and the photograph in the Kaieteur News, taken just after her freedom, did not show any evidence of distress or tiredness on the part of the girl. Her face was unstressed and her lips shining as if they had on lip gloss. She was not unkempt and the medical examination reportedly found no injury to her.
I urge the police to try to find those who abducted the girl and to issue a statement indicating the progress of the investigations since there are many parents out there with girl children who are extremely worried. My mind goes back to that traumatic experience years ago when a young boy, the son of a senior official of the CARICOM Secretariat, was kidnapped. It is not something that we would wish for anyone and therefore the police commissioner should appreciate the apprehensions out there and inform the public as to what leads he has come up with.
There is, as I said, a great deal of haze over what took place, but the fog of that traumatic incident is not as dense as that contained in a letter written by Dr. Prem Misir castigating the media and some columnists for the positions they are adopting.
Dr. Misir has an unenviable task of trying to defend the indefensible. He is not doing a good job at it but he must be excused, because what he has been assigned is a mission impossible.
The newspapers in Guyana are not the problem. The newspapers are not doing what the talk show hosts did years ago: inflaming public tensions, spinning the news and spreading hatred and rancour.
There have been some legitimate criticisms of the government. Instead of dealing with these issues, the government through its many mouthpieces has sought to attack the messenger rather than deal with the substance of the criticisms.
For example, there are a number of questions for which answers ought to be forthcoming about contracts for public works. Instead of promptly and candidly responding to these questions, the government is speaking about this newspaper being on a campaign to make them look bad.
And the government also feels that the editorials and columnists are going overboard. Well the government with so many persons with PHDs behind their names cannot complain about the lack of ability to respond to those editorials and columnists whose views may differ from the government.
This newspaper in fact went to the trouble of providing the government with the right to respond to the columnists. It granted two columns to exercise that right. But what happens instead is that both columns have disappeared from this newspaper.
So what therefore is really behind the fulminations about the editorials and columnists of this newspaper? It cannot be that there is no right to respond. We have carried even the letter by Dr. Prem Misir railing against these alleged excesses.
What is the issue? Is it really the editorials and columns? Or is there something else in the works? Something that despite the haze, is hovering discernibly for all to see.
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