How can we forget the past?

Sep 19, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
The more people look at the continued cheap public display of President Jagdeo’s visit to Buxton the more convinced there are that it is nothing more than a political stunt and demonstrates how discriminatory and disrespectful this government is to some people.
He has gone into the village asking the villagers to forget the past and making promises to them when over the years his government has deliberately marginalised them.
The Village Hall where villagers used to meet and conduct the village’s business was torn down three years ago. This is where the Village Council meets and conducts its business. The council is now forced to collect rates and taxes on a table in the wide open streets behind the market.
Gloria Thomas, a Buxtonian business woman was victimised several times, the Army damaged her furniture, threw bleach and kerosene on her food stuff. Can Ms. Thomas forget those dark days?
Donna Herrod, a mother of nine, having heard of the police shooting in the village went to pick up her children from school and on her way home she was shot by the police.
Her children witnessed this murder of their mother who died lying on them to protect them from the police’s bullets. This death remains uninvestigated and no one ever punished for this murder.
It was the PPP/C government who went into the village and bulldozed the farmlands and promised the farmers to compensate them. To date the farmers have not been adequately compensated for their crops. It was the President who called Buxtonians criminals, not once, but many times.
The PNCR, WPA and many others have on more than one occasion called for an investigation into the criminal activities in the village and to date the government has refused to do so. All we hear from the President is that he has a tape and he is allowed to subvert justice by refusing to release the tape or hand it over to the police so that society can get to the bottom of the mayhem.
Mr. Jagdeo and Mr. Hoyte signed an agreement to address the needs of depressed communities of which Buxton was identified as one. That agreement is more than eight years old and Mr. Jagdeo has refused to act.
The PPP should know that they cannot go throwing trinkets at this proud village that it has over the years marginalised. Buxtonians pay their rates and taxes and do not deserve to have their taxes used against them or used to divide them which is what the PPP has done over the last 18 years.
As a woman and as a mother my heart bleeds for what the President has done to the mothers and children of Buxton. Several young men lost their lives innocently leaving several children fatherless. These single mothers now have the responsibility and burden of both parents. With no jobs how can these single parents (mothers) pay their loans, feed, cloth and provide proper education for their children.
The President asked Buxtonians and the nation to forget the past but people cannot forget a brutish past which is still very fresh, raw and unresolved; a past presided over by the PPP/ that further divided the nation and emasculated a proud people.
Sonia Clark

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