Who Paid the Rogues and why?

Aug 23, 2012 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I wish to address the recent statement by the Minister of Education on the issue of the burning of the One Mile Primary School in Linden. I believe that the Minister of Education was quite right to condemn the burning of the school in the strongest terms. I do, too.
I agree with Minister Priya Manickchand that “peaceful protest and freedom to assemble is enshrined in our Constitution and must not only be allowed but encouraged in any democracy”.
With all due respects, however, I believe that Minister Manickchand was blatantly dishonest and disingenuous when she went on to say, “This government upholds that principle”.
Does this Minister expect anyone to believe that those who organized the peaceful protest and kept it going for 26 days, despite the unwarranted provocation that made three martyrs of their children, would suddenly burn their own schools on the 26th day after reporting that their negotiations were progressing satisfactorily?
The Minister of Education could not have missed the Wikileaks reports and the statements of Roger Khan in the US court. If the Minister like me, and “every peace loving person and citizen” truly “recognizes education as a necessary tool for poverty alleviation”, then she must ask her colleague, Clement Rohee, the Minister of Home Affairs, to find out who paid the rogues to infiltrate the peaceful protest and why?
A useful place to start the investigations would be the words of one of the Guyana’s credible opposition leaders, Khemraj Ramjattan whose knowledge of the PPP/C’s “modus operandi” cannot be disputed: “I used to be taught at Freedom House how Hitler burned the Reichstag and then threw the blame on the opposition. It could very well be that that is what is happening (in Linden). I know their (PPP) operations and their methodologies.
It is my firm view; I can’t prove it, but my firm opinion that there are state agents involved (in Linden) operating under the arrangements of some of the people in senior government offices that are creating these burnings. I cannot believe that Lindeners, ordinary parents and schoolchildren, are going to burn a school that 800 students go to. It has to be state agents doing that.
The PPP thrives on these situations and the situation has the capacity to bring back their supporters into their wagon and they want that to happen.”
Mr. Editor, I submit that the Minister of Education must have been advised prior to her obviously prepared remarks, that it was the peaceful protesters of Linden who apprehended two of the suspected arsonists and handed them over to the police; a very clear and definite indication that burning schools, never was a part of the agenda of the peaceful protest in Linden.
It had to be the handy work of someone with the mindset and training alluded to above. Every peace loving Guyanese, who understand the modus operandi of the PPP/C would naturally entertain the thoughts expressed by Khemraj Ramjattan.
Still, the Minister allowed herself to be part of an insidious propaganda machine that would make a sinister comment on the mental health of the protesters as she attributed that act of arson to the same people who chased after and found two of the suspected culprits. Who is the PPP/C propaganda machine attempting to fool?
If Minister Manickchand seriously cares about our innocent children affected by this act, as I do, then she will join the rest of Guyana in demanding an answer to the questions: who paid the rogues to destroy the One mile Primary school and why?
If the minister is unable to get a straight answer from her colleague within reasonable time, then she should join the majority of the Guyanese citizenry, who through their elected representatives, have already expressed a “no confidence” vote in the Minister of Home Affairs.
If Minister Manickchand is as serious a champion, of all of Guyana’s children, as she claims to be, she will use her good office to insist that her Ministry deserves the truth about who paid the rogues to do this dastardly act.
There “can be no ifs and buts and conditions”. The Minister of Education must join the legitimate opposition forces in Guyana and unreservedly condemn the despicable act of paying rogues to infiltrate legitimate peaceful protests and have them destroy schools ‘creating grave hardships for all involved’.
It is worthy to note that although the good Minister of Education contends that the PPP/C government upholds the constitutional rights of citizens to peaceful protests and assembly, the current PPP/C administration has now shot, wounded and killed several peaceful protestors on the streets of Guyana since its eight months existence in office. This is not the meaning of democracy.
Thomas Jefferson once wrote:”When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.” Let the Guyanese people be the judge.
The Minister of Education should rise above the propaganda gimmicks of the PPP/C and seriously focus her attention on providing the same quality of education to all of Guyana’s children. No child should be left behind because of politically motivated arson. Every child deserves to have their schools protected and respected whether their parents are protesting conditions in the sugar industry, or unreasonable electricity hikes in a mining town. Guyana’s children deserve an honest and sincere Minister of Education who will be prepared to go to the mat for them with the questions: who paid the rogues and why?
Derrick Lawrence

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