Those who see short term profit in parading Glenn Lall’s name obviously cannot see the long term destruction that it may unleash upon this land

Sep 13, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I don’t know Glenn Lall. I can’t vouch for Glenn Lall and I will not. I will not vouch for anyone but myself. But this concerted campaign by the PPP-leaning media houses to paint Glenn Lall into a picture of their making, warrants close examination and rebuke.
As the publisher of a newspaper that is waging a herculean battle against a corrupt government, Glenn Lall is a public figure playing a critical role.
A balanced perspective is necessary with respect to the details emanating from the US cable involving Lall. Lall is a public enemy of the PPP government for the fact that he publishes a newspaper that exposes the PPP government. It is that simple.
Now, the US Embassy cable says what it says. Lall has denied the conversation and the contents of the cable.
There is talk of a ‘rumoured involvement’ with alien smuggling. It is evident that this was a rumoured opinion. I believe Lall who operates a similar newspaper business in the USA and may own property in the USA and other countries has travelled to the USA and other countries numerous times without incident.
For contrast, one needs to examine what happened before the Henry Greene appointment with what is contained in the cable mentioning Lall’s name. In Greene’s case, the US Embassy obtained a specifically worded message from the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) about Greene with instructions to hand this specific message to President Jagdeo. There was no evidence, but there was a specific message from a specific agency with respect to Greene, and it dealt with the drug trade.
There is no evidence of any such message from the US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or a US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) with respect to Lall in the cable. This is a distinction that is vital to make. Finally, on this point, whether you consider it wrong or right or legal or illegal, alien smuggling was generally viewed by the PPP during the PNC days as a legitimate and perfectly legal act, based on human rights and freedom, to enable those who wanted to escape a dangerous regime and economic despair. The PPP took a similar view on contraband trading. But this is the PPP, a party known for shameless duplicity whenever it suits them.
The other issue is the claim that Lall has his pulse on the underworld. Well, if you run a muckraking newspaper, which is a commendable thing in a corrupt and failed society dominated by criminality and overrun by drug cartels, you have to have your finger on the pulse of the underworld. For the underworld dominates the country. For crime, wrongdoing and immorality stink in every corner of this nation.
If you have a pulse and even if you live in a bubble in Guyana, you will have a finger on the pulse of the underworld. In fact, there is no longer any underworld in Guyana. Corruption, crime and drug trafficking are now part of the normal world in Guyana. They are a significant part of society. You step outside of your doors and it is right in your face trying to rob you, watching you, attempting to sell you drugs, in the lost eyes of the addicts, in the barrel of a gun someone will point at you, in that bribe you have to pay to get that birth certificate that shows you were born into this land the PNC and PPP have destroyed, or seeking to influence or coerce you.
You can’t escape crime in Guyana. Because crime fills every nook and cranny of this nation and infects the halls of power, every newspaperman worth his salt has to know the pulse of what destroys this country to be able to report it.
The real problem with this cable, which explains why Lall has taken strong steps to clear his name and clarify he did not provide any information, is the information relating to the drug trade. This is the terrifying danger to a publisher like Lall. For this is not a country of law and order. This is a country where drug cartels, their kingpins and killer gangs can kill you for looking at them the wrong way. The criminals of this country are untouchable.
Lall faces a serious threat of retaliation by drug cartels who are answerable to no one but themselves and who perform the roles of judge, jury and executioner. Government cannot touch them. Government is afraid of them. So Lall has to make himself clear, because the risks are very real.
After all, Kaieteur News already faced the brutal massacre of several of its workers by a gang which no one really knows what ticked them off. It is that easy to be brutally gunned down in
Guyana. The continued reporting of the cable by some news outlets, despite Lall’s objections, seriously exposes Lall to harm by the drug trafficking savages that can take the law into their own hands without reprisal or prosecution.
This is not a case of a government being exposed by a foreign government for alleged links to those who trafficked drugs. This is a case of the constant repetition of a cable by news agencies that involves a private citizen who happens to be opposed to corruption within a government, when it is apparent that such repetition exposes the private citizen to retaliation from drug cartels.
Allegations against the government that allegedly claim some links to criminal gangs and drug cartels do not expose anyone in government to retaliation. The drug cartels acting against government over these cables is highly unlikely. Even if the pro-government news entities accept the cable as fact when it is clear it is heavily opinion-based and opinion-biased and even if they disbelieve Lall and his assertions, there is a frightening danger in repeating this matter with such alarming regularity as the more it is repeated, the likelier the incensed drug cartels may consider acting in retaliatory fashion. Thus, repetition of this issue despite the protestation of the private citizen at the centre of it, deepens the endangerment of the private citizen.
There has to be someone within these pro-government agencies with some modicum of decency and rationality who is able to look at this situation beyond the obvious political mileage it presents, to the risks it poses to the country. For any retaliation on Lall by drug cartels would not be payback but clearcut evidence of the PPP’s inability to protect private citizens. It would signal that the drug cartels rule this land. That those who vote for the PPP to rule the land are really voting for the drug cartels to rule the land.
That democracy and free and fair elections are really worthless exercises when elected government is shaking in fear before criminals.
That the drug cartels’ rule of law is the rule of law. That they would not stop at one publisher, they will strike at every newspaper in this country which reports crime.
Every criminal with a gun will then consider the possibility of seriously slaughtering the free press to ensure crime is not reported and to ensure they maintain their status as decent, law-abiding citizens with Jekyll and Hyde secrets.
The danger with sensationalising the mention of Lall’s name in a US WikiLeaks cable is that it has the real potential for serious mayhem to break loose in this country. Those who see short term profit in parading Glenn Lall’s name obviously cannot see the long term destruction that it may unleash upon this land if any drug cartel acts in typical savage fashion against a private citizen and publisher of a newspaper doing its job of reporting wrongdoing and condemning the abuse of taxpayers’ money.
What happens if a large section of this country takes such action against Lall as the trigger to launch a campaign of criminal terror in response? People are free to their opinions respecting Lall and his integrity and his past. But to continue to masquerade claims that Lall snitched on drug cartels or on the drug business when Lall himself strenuously denies it is a reckless and macabre manoeuvre in a country where the rule of law is the rule of the gun and glorified drug traffickers with immunity own the guns.
 M. Maxwell

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