Jagdeo’s Presidency has been characterised by an obsession with controlling everything

Sep 18, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The real objective of the President’s Appreciation Day, held on Friday September 16th was first and foremost to satisfy the delusions of grandeur of Mr Jagdeo and to showcase, in his shadow, his handpicked successor Mr Donald ‘Rik Rok’ Ramotar. Rik Rok as in the video clip, ‘It wasn’t me’!
Whatever his international counterparts may believe, Jagdeo’s Presidency at the national level has been characterised by rampant corruption, the open criminalization of the state and its organs and an obsession with controlling everything.
The roll call on corruption does not warrant repetition at this point.
Discrimination is directed against Jagdeo’s perceive political opponents.
It, I say, continues because it was behaviour documented and leveled against the Jagans, and Mrs Jagan in particular, by former President Hoyte in, for example, a letter responding to the Stabroek News editorial of Jan. 30 1996 and a booklet entitled ‘a roll call of the victims of discrimination’.
The vamping up of such discrimination and the PPP government’s attempt to suppress references to, and evidence of, such discrimination is demonstrated both by the removal of ethnicity from statistics collected on Government scholarships and, libel charges instituted against Mr Freddie Kissoon. This coyness is rather surprising given that Mr Jagdeo has shown that he cares not what others may think of his behaviour in this regard.
The link between the PPP and crime has been strong. The importation of guns by the PPP, the establishment of vigilante groups euphemistically termed ‘Community Policing Groups’ all predated Jagdeo’s preferment. The same is true of the labeling of African youths as ‘hooligans thugs and rapists’.
However, the post-2002 alliance between PPP politicians, drug traffickers, death squads and organs of the state, particularly the Police, escalated and was enshrined on Jagdeo’s watch. Even Roger Khan’s visit to the residence has long been an open secret in Guyana. In that sense, the Wikileaks disclosures merely confirm what was widely held to be a truth. Stabroek News’ has characterized the consequences of that nexus as, ‘The Seven years War’. That there have been deadly consequences for young Africans in general and those in Buxton in particular, East Indians elsewhere, including Lusignan and for the PPP’s own cabal, including Minister Sawh.
The obsession with total political control is not peculiar to Jagdeo. His distinguishing feature has been the use and abuse of musical entertainment to numb African youths in particular. The International Year for People of African Descent was envisaged as a serious effort to take stock of African political, social, economic and cultural development in the diaspora. In Guyana it has been turned into a set of vulgar events.
The intervention of the Government with this aim has been the source of much tension among the main African cultural bodies such as ACDA. Whilst the Government makes funds available to the Indian Arrival Committee, the African cultural bodies have to approach Jagdeo as supplicants in a process he uses to wrest control of the event and to insert himself in the limelight.
Cynicism is a hallmark of current Government policy. Little less than a week after Mr Jagdeo’s now infamous speech at the Impress Youth Expo, there was more controversy in Guyana over the charging and incarceration of a young man for gesturing at the President’s motorcade. Jagdeo reacted to public outrage over the actions of the Police and Courts with the observation that the gesture was not directed at him – of course not – but at the police officer.
He suggested that the young man, Kevin Simon, should not have been charged. What is new? Mr Jagdeo employed the same tactic with Mark Benchop who he pardoned for the crime of treason, for which he had not been convicted and for which he served five years in jail. Mr Jagdeo has continued to use the pliable and discredited Police and Army hierarchy and the captive Courts as a weapon with which to intimidate his critics and to suppress vocal criticism of his regime.
Even as he was saying that the Police acted inappropriately, two of three other persons, including a wife, again stand charged with treason and have been languishing in prison on the basis of trumped up charges. These are all signs that we are approaching another national election.
Doubtless, no credible evidence will be led and long before the case is called, these political prisoners will be released on the basis of a magnanimous gesture by Jagdeo. But the salutary purpose will have been served.
The current illegal imprisonment of three members of the public on unspecified charges related to allegations that they spray painted a public road falls into the same mold of harassment and intimidation.
Since its settlement by Dutch colonists, this country has nurtured a number of outstanding individuals who have in one way or another contributed to changing the course of its history for the better. Most recently, the contribution of A.R.F. Webber, in launching the first Political Party in Guyana and fighting the planter and Colonial Office in the late 1920s, inter alia, was captured in a fascinating work by no less a writer than Prof Selwyn Cudjoe of T&T who also wrote a biography of Eric Williams.
None of these leaders, for
all their individual flaws, sought to ‘self garland’ in the style of Jagdeo. The indecent haste with which he seeks to pursue his obsession to achieve glory and homage is in poor taste. The judgment of posterity cannot be pre-empted in this way.
Bob Dylan has this cautionary tale for all of us:
“It gives you delusions of grandeur and an evil eye
It gives you the idea that you’re too good to die
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit”
Even more alarming than Jagdeo’s behavior, is Mr. Donald Ramotar’s acquiescence and role in all of this. He says little, smiles like a cherub and goes with the flow. These are not the characteristics of a serious politician intending to occupy the seat of leadership at a time when the country needs a leader with initiative and vision.
Carl Greenidge

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