Torture in Hotel California

Nov 02, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

There are some fantastic songs that even if they fall outside your favourite genre of music, you would still have a deep, aesthetic appreciation for their intrinsic value.

There are too many to mention and I wouldn’t know where to start but for the purpose of this essay, I would mention the hit of the seventies from a great American soft rock band, the Eagles titled, “Hotel California.” Like so many compositions over the 20th century, this ballad transcends generational differences.

“Hotel California” tells the story of the power of the narcotic drug and what it does to its user. It makes you invincible. It gets you to feel that you have the world at your feet.

You like what it does to you and for you. But in the end it takes control of you and it undoes you. There is no escape from it. Here are some lines about the taste of power from the song

“Mirrors on the ceiling

The pink champagne on ice

And she said

We are all just prisoners here

Of our own device

In the master chambers

They gathered for the feast

They stab it with their steely knives

But they just can’t kill the beast.”

The pink champagne represents the taste of power, and the inability to kill the beast is about the mental imprisonment that comes from that power. In society, the possession of political power does to its holder what the narcotic drug does for its user – intoxication that is never-ending.

None of us, I repeat, not one of us in this country, who fought alongside the PPP during the seventies and eighties (more than two decades to be precise) ever in his/her wild imagination would have believed that the PPP boys and girls would have been more intoxicated with power to a level that exceeds Forbes Burnham. I repeat for the umpteenth time, what we are seeing in Guyana today makes the 16-year old rule of Forbes Burnham look like a boy scout picnic.

There is absolutely no way Burnham would have given away Guyana’s resources to his PNC acolytes the way the PPP is doing.

One of the Caribbean’s most respected journalists told me that the PPP doesn’t care about losing power because they and their Indian supporters are already in ownership of the country. There is absolutely no way, Burnham would have tolerated the sexual pathologies that characterize the governorship of the PPP hierarchy.

There is absolutely no way, Burnham would have tolerated little PNC girls and boys taking the country’s money as if it is their own. There is absolutely no way Burnham would have shared state facilities with a drug baron.

Today, these rulers are basking in luxury at Hotel California. Guyana’s Hotel California is in Pradoville, where a mansion has an indoor swimming poll. That is where they drink the pink champagne on ice every Sunday. Last weekend, they were living it up at the Hotel California for all to see.

The motorists passing by could see them with the towels around their waists and the steely knives in their hands. Of course they were in the master chambers. This article is being written on Sunday so today (Sunday), they may be at Hotel California again.

But they cannot escape the consequences that will come from the torture of that little boy. One of them, Clement Rohee, told the press how can they ask him about torture when he has so many important things on his plate. Another, Robert Persaud dubbed the torture of accused that were badly burned as “roughing up.”

This country must not focus on the police that torture this little boy but on the Government of Guyana including Mr. Rohee and Mr. Persaud and their ultimate head, President Jagdeo. Why is torture such an accepted formula by both police and army?

These security personnel are not stupid. They know that their Government is on the wave length of treating accused and criminals with the law of the jungle. They know their bosses in Government do not care if criminals are shot dead then read their rights after.

They know their bosses in Government bend the laws all the time. Police and soldiers read what Ministers Rohee and Persaud said about torture. They know about police and military connection to Roger Khan and they know who Khan’s friends were in the Government.

And they take their cue from these quarters. The American Embassy should make the first move and revoke the visas of the entire Cabinet. Time for a National Government in this land.