Tottering from precipice to precipice

Aug 30, 2011 Editorial

Guyana is a country tottering from one indignity to another. The government talks about good governance, but exposes in the WikiLeaks cables tell another story. Perhaps the most embarrassing was the report by the Cabinet Secretary that a gun smuggler was using the Guyana Defence Force.
We know that there is rampant corruption in every section of the society, but we might only be aware of the tip of the iceberg. For the main defence body in the country to facilitate gun smugglers must be the most shocking. The smuggled guns are invariably used against the innocent people in the country.
So there was this report that five machine pistols were brought in and that the army was merely holding them for the buyer. One would have thought that there would have been an inventory for every article imported by the army. There would have been orders placed; these would have been checked by the supplier and the importer, paid for by the army, then imported.
Having found out about this deal to use the army as a base for smuggled weapons one would have expected an investigation that would have been far-reaching. Until the expose by WikiLeaks, the nation was none the wiser.
It took the Kaieteur News to break the story that a large number of AK-47s were stolen from the Guyana Defence Force. There was an initial denial and then an admission. History will reveal that the army mounted its biggest operation yet, and this was done when President Bharrat Jagdeo was out of the country.
We know that this operation smashed the largest cocaine ring in Guyana; led to the recovery of some of the weapons and the death of some notorious criminals.
For years, Guyanese have been saying that crime is the greatest deterrent to investment. They have also been saying that they would flee the country at the first opportunity they got. These confidential cables have revealed just how much Guyanese wanted to leave. Some 73,000 migrant visas were granted to the United States alone in a 12-year period.
There have been no figures for migration to Canada, the Caribbean and to other parts of the world, not excluding Suriname and Brazil.
As the cable suggested, there is no idea of how many left illegally and have not been detected. Popular opinion is that illegal migration is greater than legal migration. During the Burnham years, after Guyana became a republic, and until the ruling People’s Progressive Party came into office, the East Indian population declined by some 43,000.
The late Dr Cheddi Jagan, reacting to the migration of people of Indian ancestry, said that the people were voting with their feet. And this must have been the truth. His message of persecution found sympathetic ears in Washington and his government came to power. But the mass migration continued.
Had these been ordinary people migrating, one would have said that they were seeking a better life. But the bulk of them were skilled people, needed to man the various development institutions so desperately required in the country. The United Nations has already predicted that the population would be slashed by almost half in the coming years.
We have seen the marked decline in education and in health services, although the country is introducing more and more high-end health services. The truth is that foreign nationals are running these facilities.
As if these negative issues are not enough, we now find that we may be ostracized from being part of the game we all recognize is the single unifying force in the Caribbean. A group of men, many of them seemingly bent on personal aggrandizement, decided to take control of the leading cricketing institution—the Guyana Cricket Board. The courts intervened and things have reached a gridlock.
Being cognizant of the rules of the International Cricket Council and the West Indies Cricket Board, that politicians should not get involved in cricket, the government has decided to immerse itself in Guyana cricket. We are about to lose hosting an international competition.
Is it that we are self-destructive? Are we witnessing the death of Guyana? We are losing our people and we now seem bent on removing ourselves from international competition.

***

Dear Readers,
We would like to inform you that the Editorial which appeared in yesterday’s edition (Monday, August 29) captioned “Polarising Danger” was a Guest Editorial, and was not written by any of our editorial staff. Further, opinions expressed therein are solely the contributor’s views and not those of the Kaieteur News.

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