Another decade of Guyana’s life has passed

Jan 04, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On December 31 last year, a decade went by. It is routine for newspapers and commentators to asses life and the world after a decade has passed. At the moment that is what the world’s top newspapers are doing. It is with fear that one attempts to compare our ten year period with other states. I say fear because when you look at little Jamaica and Trinidad and what they have done with those islands in comparison to stagnant Guyana, it makes all Guyanese pessimistic.

It is not that Guyana hasn’t moved since 2000 began. It has. The question is how fundamental to a meaningful, free life have been these achievements? Lennox John gave us Splashmins and a top-class city mall. Buddy Shivraj gave us another five-star hotel after the Pegasus stood alone since the sixties. Quite a number of commercial outlets have opened up since the dawn of 2000 but has Guyanese life changed for the better? The answer is no. We can cite two developments over the past ten years that brought some comfort to our people. One is the opening up of some good private schools.

Before 2000, this was a heart break situation for many parents. Public schools were a deplorable site. The best of them were devoid of teachers, labs and furniture. Those who could have afforded it saw that their children were rewarded with a sound secondary exposure through these private schools. The second one I can think of is that Digicel brought affordable cell phones to the entire population. Years ago, I saw a 60 Minutes programme in which even the children of Finland had cell phones. Because of the competition Digicel brought to Guyana, school children from poor areas can afford to have a mobile phone to chat with their distantly placed friends. A cell phone is not a luxury anymore. I remember when they came to Guyana I bought one for $45, 000 for my daughter. Three years after Digicel showed up, that brand was on sale a Saturday morning at UG for $2,500.

I don’t think the country could absorb the graduates from another university thus I disagreed with the opening up of the Berbice campus of UG. A better way to go was to build a dorm at Turkeyen strictly for Essequibo and Berbice students. After ten years of Mr. Jagdeo’s presidency, this country deserved a far more impressive Berbice Bridge but the Berbice Bridge for me is a graphically living symbol of how tragic and hopeless is this nation – the New Amsterdam site was bypassed for reasons of realpolitik. This was one unforgivable sin of the PPP the past ten years.

So where has life been transformed since 2000 began? Today, the top public schools are lacking in teachers in every discipline from History to Biology. The judicial system is in tatters. I read in the newspaper where a nationally known dubious man walked free because his file was missing. There can be and will never be freedom, justice and liberty in this country if the judicial system is not modernized and democratized. It is Guyana’s saddest moment. Thousands have gone to their graves without their day in court, their rights violated with impunity. The beginning of the end of the judicial system can be dated to the merger of state power and drug trafficking which crystallized after the Mash Day escape of some Camp Street prisoners in 2002.

This interlocking relationship is the tragedy of the decade. How can any government ask a notorious drug pusher to help it and when he agreed, shared power with him? The international community should intervene to remove such a rogue government. If there is anything for me, and I stress for me, that the last decade has proven, is that under this regime, Guyana has produced the most immoral, corrupt, inept and racist government in the history of the English-speaking Caribbean. Many courageous citizens who fought the PNC governments under President Forbes Burnham have psychic reasons for not publishing their views. I don’t. I lived under Burnham and I saw terrible things.

Today, the corruptibilities of the present junta that administers the affairs of state have made Burnham’s government look ordinary, very ordinary. Most of all, the image, credibility and aura of respect that the presidency must definitely carry have been destroyed in this country the last decade. No decent Guyanese sees that office as the embodiment of grace and urbanity. When the highest office in the land behaves without any manners whatsoever, such a country has gone to waste. It has been a decade of economic stagnation, secret government and incredible racist policies. All in all, a decade of elected dictatorship.

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Another decade of Guyana’s life has passed

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