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Is the Linden struggle a damp squib?

Sep 03, 2012 Letters

Dear Editor,
The PNC/APNU and the AFC betrayed the Linden struggle. In betraying that struggle they betrayed their larger national constituencies and signal to the PPP to go ahead with their grandstanding of wanting to come to some form of compromise to benefit Linden.
President Ramotar’s PPP is a very young minority outfit that has as its actors the very men and women that sustained a brutal dictatorship under Mr. Bharat Jagdeo.
Equally, under the PNC/ APNU and the AFC the same ‘merry mice’ that were unable to reign in the excesses of the PPP throughout the years, still occupy the top floors of their respective political apartments.
We should also realise by now that the PPP may have a minority passport but are still in possession of the majority green card. They continue to get away with excesses they should never have after 2012.
We may have to admit that the AFC, by virtue of an alternative to the two major parties, helped by attracting Moses Nagamootoo to their fold and causing a temporary sway in the traditional voting patterns. This was largely a single act that rendered the PPP its minority credentials.
It is the quiet fallout within the APNU between Aubrey Norton and the leadership and the strategic placement of a highly capable, solid and courageous young man, Sharma Solomon, as Region Ten’s Chairman, that may have torn down the new wall paper that covered some huge cracks and crumbling debris inside the house of APNU.
The Linden struggle held the single key to reign in the PPP and caused its eventual demise, taking with it all its venalities and filth it poured over Guyana for decades. The flames of defiance that burned so promisingly at Linden were never allowed to spread across the land. Why?
I was there at Linden when Norton’s clearly visibly work returned Linden solidly to his party.
It is this writer’s view that had Norton not played his part at Linden during the last elections, the PPP would have made inroads; liquid cash, a lot was being offered to Lindeners to vote for the PPP among other countless convincing but not to be fulfilled promises.
The Linden struggle appeared to be a slap in the APNU’s face. Granger would have quickly killed the inevitability of what was to come through his deliberate agreement with the PPP to see the electricity tariff implemented.
Sharma Solomon was having none of it. I remembered Solomon’s statement about burning all green T Shirts. Granger backpedaled.
The PPP understood clearly well that Norton had the capability to create a national unrest like never before; they knew that he had the support of the people and leaders at Linden. They also knew that APNU and AFC would not support any extra parliamentary struggle that would impact negatively from the strategic outlook from the business class and one ethnic group’s vantage point.
They banked largely on the Norton/ APNU rift.
It allowed them to focus on what they saw as not such a great dilemma that would pose a threat to their rule. To quickly put a stop to the Linden protest, they killed and injured people. It did not work to stop what was to come. The struggle reached the peak to have national and international support but not to have the direct involvement of Georgetown and other non PPP constituencies. How ironic.
The dust is now settled, if only temporarily. There are no spoils to count. There is the ‘back to square one’ promise game. Rohee is still in office and we are importing foreign experts with the millions of taxpayers’ money to have talk shops. The same millions that would have served better to compensate the families of those killed and the injured.
I don’t think the PPP has ever lost a political war since they have been in power. The opposition parties have always helped them to win.
Where do we go from here?  I see the same Chevy Chase roundabout in the serious comedy of a political tragedy called Guyana.
I still salute Mark Benschop, Lincoln Lewis, Gerhard Ramsaroop, David Hinds and a few others who stayed and continue in the forefront of a national struggle for justice and fair play. They are the real opposition.
Norman Browne

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