A report on the carnage of unrelenting dictatorship

Nov 20, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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There are three developments this week that tell a long story about dictatorship in Guyana but more importantly about the particular nature of the Guyanese dictatorship. First, there is the punishment meted out to the headmistress of the Bagotsville Primary School.
She might have unwittingly brought out the students and parents in a picketing exercise over a disaster that the Government of Guyana ought to be ashamed of.
The school has only one teacher. There is no running water. Naturally this outburst of genuine anger caused monumental embarrassment to the little tyrants who go all over Guyana sermonizing citizens with points of progress. The demonstration outside the Bagotsville Primary School comes a few months after returning graduates from foreign universities were given a lecture on the private media. They were advised to ignore the assessments of the presidency and the Government of Guyana as seen through the eyes of‘ the private media because the intention is always to denigrate the country’s leadership.
Visits were made to Buxton and to Plaisance, to a Rastafarian church, a youth award graduation ceremony, the motor-racing ceremony, an ex-soldiers’ association and the self-eulogies went on. The old theme played on – Guyana is making progress.
The students of Bagotsville proved the theme to be false. The students and their lone teacher, the headmistress, enacted the tale of the King and his magic clothes. Only the king can see progress while the nation is mired in darkness—darkness in the literal sense of the word  – GPL collapses once more.
The teacher is demoted and the message is successfully sent off – if you rally against this government you will be targeted. The headmistress’s fate is sealed. No one came to her rescue. The opposition which was supposed to have come to her rescue will enter Parliament tomorrow and help the Government with its self-praise.
Then there is the great betrayal in the making. The Guyana Teachers’ Union was guaranteed a withdrawal of the documents sent to three QC teachers that sanctioned them over the death of Neesa Gopaul, and this occurred after the union decided to boycott the annual school sports.
New letters have been received by the teachers and there is no explicit cancellation of the punishment. Yet another manifestation of “we will do what we want.”
Only the opposition parties believe that the Guyana Government is capable of honourable acts. The prediction has been made by the population that the outspoken citizens will see the wrath of the dictators in one way or the other. Only the opposition parties believe the government will keep its word to the GTU.
I told dozens and dozens of citizens that the Ministry of Works spiteful act of not clearing the weeds in the trench in front of my home is inconsequential when it comes to the abominable, evil and terror tactics of the Government of Guyana. I did highlight this vindictive attitude but my little situation is a tiny drop in the ocean compare to the sarcoma of fascism that permeates the social landscape of Guyana.
There is the current Auditor-General report. The sickening picture of elites in power taking hundreds of millions of dollars for themselves is once more painted all over Guyana.
One particular egregious portfolio stands out – the Ministry of Heath. The AG’s report is written in unambiguous language. Monies spent by that Ministry that amounts to hundreds of millions of dollars do not have a paper trail so no one knows where it went.
The corruptibility of the Guyana Government has proven what a farce international democracy and global accountability are. Here is a small, obscure, unknown Caribbean country whose government depends on its viability and existence on loans from the World Bank, IDB, Caribbean Development among others.
The funds in those banks come from countries whose leadership has publicly declared that they will hold Third World leaders to international standards of accountability and good governance when they lend them money or dispense grants to them. But there has been no action, not even from one of these banks, on what is taking place with the finance that is being lent to the Guyana Government.
One would like to think that the World Bank and the IDB are in receipt of corruption studies done on Guyana. Officials from these banks are in receipt of the annual reports of Transparency International. Why then has there been no stoppage of aid?
The Auditor-General report is incontrovertible evidence that billions are being stolen from the Treasury. Stolen is the operative word because hundreds of millions cannot be accounted for. We hear all the time that the US Government needs hard evidence. Well the AG’s report is that evidence and it is more than hard.

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