I chose to face the unlawful charges against me, rather than running into the jungle like a scared rat

Aug 28, 2013 Letters

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Dear Editor,
Allow  me if you will to respond to the revelations that have come out of my on air interview with my fellow treason accused Phillip Bynoe over the past week, and  your news article of August 16 2013 on the subject matter on whether he  owes me an apology over my unlawful incarceration as a political prisoner. I will proceed to do so by citing comments attributed to Bynoe, and providing my take on them. Martin Luther King’s insights that, “In the end we will remember not the words or actions of our enemies but the deafening silence of our friends….”,
is instructive, I  believe, in any examination of what Phillip should or should not have done after my arrest, indictment, and prosecution. Mr. Bynoe  proclaimed that quote, “..Mark Benschop decided on his own to listen to the advice of his attorneys and turned himself in…
Phillip Bynoe  took his own counsel and refused to turn himself in…” . Phillip’s argument thus is that even though I knew that I had broken no law, had committed no crime, the wise thing for me to do would have been to go on the run like him. They say that anyone who chose to
represent themselves in a legal matter has a fool for a client, and this also is  instructive in any examination of Bynoe’s thought processes. I will argue that had I not turned myself in and thus endured a public trial that exposed the political implications in the case, and had gone on the
run with Bynoe, I would have probably been dead like so many who were  accused and never had their day in court. Bynoe’s post facto retrospective is inundated with egotistical bravado and egotistical interposition. If one expects to be taken seriously by those one purports to be representing, or the values and rights and freedoms one is  ostensibly engaged in pursuing, flight in the face of trumped up and  political prosecutions is not what one should resort to. I knew that I was not involved in any treasonous conduct or activity on the day in question. I knew that I was innocent and flight would instigate inferences of my guilt. I chose to exhibit the courage to face the unlawful charges before a forum legally prescribed for determining guilt
or innocence, rather than absconding into the jungle like a scared rat.
Bynoe admits that he was responsible for staging a protest that he claims got out of hand. He admits that I arrived after the events that were the subject of the charges filed against me, had taken place. At the same time, he asserts that he had no obligation to make known these facts during the long period of my trial and incarceration. He boastfully asserts that he was in communication with Attorneys within  and without the ruling regime behind my political persecution and  incarceration. But by some defect of reasoning and understanding, he
felt no responsibility to use those contacts to make publicly known the facts and circumstances of my presence at the scene on the day in question. I have to assume that Bynoe does not subscribe to the wisdom  of the late civil rights leader and martyr Martin Luther King in his  exhortation that we should, “..never, never be afraid or reluctant to do what is right, especially when the well being of a person or animal is  at stake. And that Society’s punishments are small compared to the wounds we inflict on our soul when we do otherwise.” My well-being and that of the many who answered his call to that protest were mere blips on the subjective self-preserving radar of Phillip Bynoe, in comparison  to the punishments he perceived might have been forthcoming over  something that he had initiated.
Bynoe, in a vile attempt to explain away his cowardly absconding after the incident, seeks to blame me for my incarceration. He exudes the most obnoxious and inane argument that I was not part of the struggle. That I was not invited. Bynoe, in  his post facto preening presumes that there was some clause on Cuffy’s will that bequeathed him the privilege of deciding who could be and could not be part of the Guyanese struggle for change. I suppose this is an inheritance of his political association with those who daily exhibit the tendency to presume ownership of all that is material and non-material property in Guyana. And it adds to, rather than takes away, the suspicion that the entire fiasco was meant to ensnare others into a web of political persecution. Bynoe, in his after all the dust has cleared triumphalist exultation, evidences the kind of leadership that incites and exhorts people into actions and activities, and then scurries away furtively, leaving them to face the music alone.  My question to Phillip Bynoe is, since he seems willing to enter into a public discussion on this issue, and since his disclosures clearly and unambiguously demonstrate my innocence of the charges leveled against me, and for which I was incarcerated for a significant portion of my young life, is he prepared to swear to an affidavit on his revelations? Would he stand before a Justice of the
Peace authorized to take sworn testimony, and affix his signature to what freely reveals today? The test of true leadership is not the boastful noise that emanates from those who aspire to such positions. The test of true leadership is the willingness to stand firm and resolute for one’s convictions, and be willing, as I did, and as many who I have no intention of comparing myself with, honorably did, whether the theatre was South Africa or the United States of America.
Like Martin Luther King, whose wisdom and courage has been an instrumental guiding principle for my positions and activism, I believe that the ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.  Everyone can remember and understand where I was at a time of great challenge and controversy, and where I continue to be today. Bynoe, after scurrying away when the time was ripe with challenge and controversy, today seeks to make his stand today in post facto comfort and convenience.
Mark  A. Benschop

 

 

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