Gold and diamond miners confront dictatorship

Feb 01, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Look who they sent to Bartica to mollify the miners. In the history of politics, no country has produced such incompetent rulers. Except for the public sector managers who are not known for egregious policy-making, the three politicians who turned up in Bartica on Saturday to address the miners are disliked national figures. The first name to take off the list is Odinga Lumumba. Along with Kellawan Lall, he is the Government official that commends no respect among the Guyanese population.

Next is Robert Persaud. Generally seen as a young man who has learnt nothing about politics, he comes across as an arrogant, impertinent novice that will never make it to the top. The infamous gang of three is completed by “Mr. Hammer,” Robeson Benn.

If there is anyone out there whose conduct will cause the PPP to lose the forthcoming general elections, it is Benn. A man who identifies encumbrances to be destroyed without any logic and does so barefacedly while ignoring blatant violations of others, Benn has no place as a leader in any country in the world, not even in Myanmar, Sudan, Sierra Leone, Arab autocracies and other dictatorships.

The miners stopped short of chasing them out of the building. Put yourself in the place of those miners. Look who sat at the head table addressing them – could incompetence get worse than this. These miners are investors who know the industry. Think of the mutiny raging in them as such types spoke and attempted to address their concerns. It is quite possible that they would have listened to Habeeb Khan with more attention.

The infamous gang of three failed to persuade the miners. And one reason explained that. If you study carefully the replies of the miners at that meeting, they could all be collapsed into one assessment – “We don’t trust the Government of Guyana because we do not perceive its leaders as being fair, principled people.”

It is this very Government that failed to consult them on the six months prior notice. It is this very Government that wrote a secret memorandum to the Guyana Forestry Commission curtailing the activities of the miners without them knowing. Here was an edict that militated against the livelihood of the miners without the Government having the decency to allow the people to make some comments.

The miners pointed to the dictatorial attitude of President Jagdeo who exclaimed that if the miners didn’t go along with the “consultations” then Government will go it alone. This is the essence of Mr. Jagdeo’s style. It is unadulterated dictatorship out of which the Guyanese people should vote the PPP from office and the new government should have a judicial commission of inquiry into their violations.

The Bartica shut-down is a sad reflection on the abject, miserable failure of the total opposition in this country. The mining community is an important stakeholder yet it sees no role for the opposition in its fight with the dictatorial regime, proudly exclaiming that today in Bartica as it makes its protest known to the nation, it does not want to see an opposition presence on Bartican soil.

The miners asked what were the opposition parties doing for the miners when the anti-mining edicts were being drafted. They are perfectly right. No one is asking the opposition parties to go outside the Office of the President with placards. That is not on the cards because the PPP will create violence to frighten East Indians. They already made that intention known both practically and intellectually.

The attacks on the Ministry of Health and the High Court are highly suspicious with a mysterious vehicle of violence that left the Linden Highway, created mayhem in Georgetown, then passed dozens of police road blocks and found its way back to Linden where it was abandoned.

Then the regime has Ravi Dev working overtime stoking the fire of fear among East Indians. This stratagem is known to all Guyanese. A very strategically placed person has told me, Mark Benschop and Lincoln Lewis not to picket any longer because centrally directed violence is in the making.

So no one is asking the opposition to play into the hands of the dictators but aren’t there other ways to instill optimism in the population. This very opposition behaves like a toothless poodle, walking into Parliament with a Pavlovian collar around its neck being led into the House by the PPP. Guyana’s dictatorship will get worse because the tyrants have no respect for the opposition. The President said the new opposition is the media.