Must the ERC or Granger atone for 1973 elections mishaps?

Mar 25, 2011 Letters

---

Dear Editor,
Ms Lurlene Nestor in a letter to (SN) on 22 March 2011, titled, “Did the ERC monitor what the President said at Babu John?” Ostensibly seeks to do well for Guyana.
She is worried, as a PNC executive, about the public’s perception after they were reminded in President Jagdeo charges that PNC presidential candidate Mr. David Granger has ‘blood on his hands”. But does she actually want the ERC to instead punish President Jagdeo for Mr. Granger’s role during the 1973 elections? Who must absolve the PNC for the 1973 mishaps?
Now could Ms Nestor be right in what she expects the ERC to do about yesterdays’ history? It has been clearly established that Mr. Granger served as the principal adviser to Prime Minister Forbes Burnham by his appointment as Political and Military Liaison during the 1973 elections.
When the GDF seized the ballot boxes in 1973, shot two Guyanese dead and injured many more during that tragic period, was Mr. Granger totally ignorant of the entire operations? Are we to believe that an intelligent Prime Minister Burnham selected a dunce to be his political and military adviser?
Surely the rape of Guyana’s democracy in 1973 in which Mr. Granger played a pivotal destructive role cannot now be dismissively excused to justify that same individual now becoming its quintessential glorified benefactor in 2011 by the same ballot box?
If Ms Nestor expects the ERC to absolve Mr. Granger for his yesterday actions she has a new think coming. It would be a travesty of monumental proportions. It’s akin to King Claudius killing Hamlet’s father, marrying his mother and ascending the throne and kingdom.
Who therefore has blood on their hands for the injuries and deaths of those two Guyanese? The army ranks who obeyed their immediate commanding officer and fired as ordered, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham, who approved the plan or his Military and Political Liaison Mr. Granger who had responsibility for crafting and implementing the entire operation?
Knowing that the GDF military operations required the capture of the ballot boxes to sequester them at army headquarters to change their results did Mr. Granger originate, advise, clarify, defend, vacillate, or vigorously pursue the strategy of retrieving the boxes by any means necessary including “shoot to kill”?
Mayor Green’s excitement at Mr. Granger’s selection can clarify why his bosses were so pleased with his achievements to later promote Mr. Granger as GDF head. Isn’t Mr. Green now a more pious changed man capable of telling the complete truth?
The world, United States included, banned and ostracised former UN Secretary General Mr. Kurt Waldheim when it was revealed that he was a member of Adolph Hitler’s Nazi SS Gestapo despite the fact that he was subsequently elected president of his native Austria. Jews were national targets by the Nazis just as Indians are now being portrayed as short circuiting democracy in Guyana (KN, 3-9-2011), ( https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2011/03/09/will-blacks-continue-supporting-afc-under-ramjattan/) and worthy of being expelled en mass from Guyana. (KN, 1-12-2011)(https://www.kaieteurnewsonline.com/2011/01/12/why-would-india-set-up-such-a-monument/)
That the PNC massively rigged all the elections except those of 1964 and 1992 is now well known and documented. And it would be apt to concede Mr. Granger is not a Nazi, despite his previous history. But why is it that not even one…that’s right, not even one… PNC official or member has been brave and honorable enough to step forward and confess about the dark details of those tragic events?
Why have our Harripauls, Harriwrights, Kissoons, Rams, Ramsaroops, Boodhrams, Ogunseyes, Fitzpatricks, Aksharanandas, McCormacks, Bhagwans, Thomases, Phillips, Rupnarines, and Hinds who seek justice nowadays abandoned justice yesterday? Why was no one held accountable in court for rigging of national elections i.e. aborting democracy when the PPP came to power in 1992?
Contrast this development where Desi Bouterese was on trial both in Holland and Suriname for subverting democracy by overthrowing the legally elected Surinamese government.
That controversy and toxic impenetrable clouds still surround the PNC’ s involvement in those elections where many were injured with two being shot dead is still a lingering dilemma which begs resolution. Only Mr. Granger can singularly allay the widespread perception that he has blood on his hands by an admission, clarification and a plea for forgiveness.
He must be born again and bare his soul to be cleansed by confession to atone for his sins, seeking as he is, our country’s highest and most powerful political
office. A crippled George Wallace, the former Alabama Governor who followed the most racist policies against US southern blacks begged for forgiveness when he admitted he was wrong. Surely Mr. Granger remembers the outpouring of forgiveness which blacks showered on Governor Wallace.
When Mr. Granger recognises that Indians seek survival, ethnic and cultural security and balancing of the armed forces as a legal surety, he as a devout Christian must meditate on the course he wants to follow and how he wants to be viewed by all his fellow countrymen.
The Grenadians found it possible to subject mastermind Bernard Coard and others to a court trial and jailed them for the murder of Prime Minister Maurice Bishop after overthrowing his democratically elected government in 1983. East Pakistan was reborn as Bangladesh when it ripped itself from control of West Pakistan in 1971 in spite of both being Muslim. The Bengali Muslims majority of a united Pakistan could not perpetually subject themselves to the arrogant subjugation of its compatriots from the Western half.  The Guyana alternative is either Mr. Eusi Kwayana’s partition or federation where blacks are guaranteed political freedom, while we all still live as giant federated family.
Only Mr. Granger can speak for himself and begin healing our wounded national psyche. The PPP is incapable of resolving this national dilemma as the aggrieved party due to its ideological puritanical history. For them class always supersedes whatever.
Mr. Granger is no doubt a skilled strategist by training. It cannot be also denied that the overriding image that he offers is that of a man of war whose best qualifications equips him to kill his fellow human beings who are enemies. His success in his profession earned him rapid ascension to eventually head our Army. His successes have now become a long rope in which he is now entangled and appears to be strangling him. That explains Ms Nestor’s rush to rescue him by going ERC.
And while the possibility does exists, Mr. Granger may democratically emerge our President, he is certainly no lunatic to start a war with Brazil, Suriname, Venezuela (or for that matter China to stop the influx of Chinese into Guyana) with whom the PPP/C has developed excellent relations.
So while the PNC had every right to select whomever they wanted, the final decision on our presidency will be made by a fragile Guyanese democracy which was ironically battered by the same PNC which progressively rewarded Mr. Granger’s elevation. Mr. Granger it seems is obviously owed a lot by the PNC. Is it because he had delivered in the past?
No one wants a return to the PNC dictatorial days where the present alternative witnesses a return to those GDF guns being turned inwardly within Guyana by an empowered Mr. Granger who is most eminently equipped to do so, given his record. Previous use of the now reformed GDF to rig elections and destroy Guyana must not hang over our heads like the sword of Damocles. Mr. Granger’s as a scholar must appreciate why his candidacy is so frightening.
Guyana needs to resolve its current problems and not be saddled with the shadow of previous burdensome possibilities reoccurring. So how would Mr. Granger now proceed? He has a lot of explaining to do to clean up his image. For anyone, the PNC or Mr. Granger to blame President Jagdeo simply for pointing out that Mr. Granger  “has blood in his hands” does not absolve Mr. Granger or the PNC of their past.
What morality or media dance will exempt or justify that party from responsibility for its transgressions of its 28 years which wrecked our country’s economy and scattered its brightest brains to the wind, race, Jagan’s communism and stupidity?
Who knows, maybe President Jagdeo may be subtly suggesting that the PNC wash and clean up for an invitation. It will certainly do them both and all Guyanese good. You never know when they will meet and have to shake hands. Their camaraderie is critical to all Guyanese state of calm, peace and happiness. Now wouldn’t such a meeting of the minds between these political cousins be a political treat just before Christmas?
They have done it before. With these politicians, we can only pray and hope. Right now no political party is my cup of tea. But Mr. Granger can absolutely change my mind. Where is the sugar?
Vassan Ramracha

---

---