Night time tales of sexual harassment in Parika

Oct 08, 2013 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

On Saturday night, while the AFC public meeting was in full swing at the market junction in Parika, Michael Carrington and I walked around the area visiting places and talking to people. Our first stop was on the wharf where one of the two Chinese ferries donated to the Government was moored.
Carrington gazed at it and said that the vessel looked more than forty years old. I challenged him and he said he knows because he had a look at the inside a few months ago. And indeed the vessel has an old appearance. We were told that one of the doors has not been working and no one cares to fix it. I made the point that maintenance is a culture the PPP leaders are just not interested in and that give a few months’ time, the toilets of those ferries would be completely unusable.
The vessel certainly didn’t look like a ferry that was ten years old. Carrington then described the ferry he saw in Trinidad a few months back. It plies the Port-of-Spain Tobago route. He said it was ordered from Australia and was state of the art. It was just depressing to hear those stories of modern life in other countries. It makes you feel that we may never catch up with the modern world.
Who is in charge of the area of Parika? Both Region Three and the NDC are in control of the PPP. Yet Parika is dirty with garbage thrown all over the place. In a column three weeks ago, I wrote about the garbage I saw all over, literally, all over the streets and highways while traveling to Berbice. I did not pass a village where the roadway was not littered and the sight was not deplorable. There is something very nihilistic in this country.
Why are there so much filth, mess and garbage all over Guyana? What is the reason? Is there a solution? No nation should accept these horrible conditions in the 21st century.
We are told everyday that Georgetown is stink because the Mayor and City Council is not doing its work. But it is not Georgetown alone that is overrun but also the territory of Guyana.
A human being has to be clinically sick to be any leader in a government and in the midst of this ubiquitous miasma declare that the Government of Guyana is promoting tourism.
Fifteen years ago, I invited the Canadian High Commissioner to address my class at UG. As soon as he stepped on the walkway to the classroom, he said, “God this place is dirty.” This is the third occasion I have mentioned this incident. If that man should come back to that identical spot and see how dirtier it is, he must conclude that Guyana does not deserve to be part of the modern world.
We left the wharf and went to chat with some stallholders who were preparing for the usual big Sunday market. What we were told was despicably shocking but not surprising. In no other country, this particular official would have kept his office. The vendor who complained to us is willing to give a statement. But the party will protect its own no matter how depraved they are.
In his office, he asked her if she was married. When she said no, he asked how is it that a nice woman like her with such attractive breasts does not have a man. On another occasion, he told her friend that never mind she is ugly, he still would have sex with her. This vendor supported by another female colleague assured us that it is this man’s habit of speaking to female vendors in this sexually condescending manner.
These things never reach the public’s ear because these women bear up with the PPP’s little gods because they fear victimization. No one from the Government of Guyana or the PPP will contact me or Michael Carrington and pursue this official. And guess why? The women complained to Michael Carrington and he is from the AFC and Freddie Kissoon wrote about it.
A horrible case of sexual harassment goes uninvestigated because two anti-government critics publicized it. Of course this man is not alone in this kind of power abuse. It happens all over Guyana with junior officials who wear the party badge on their shirt pocket. Since 1992, they have behaved like this.
Cheddi Jagan did not put up with it. But subsequent PPP leaders could not be bothered. I have seen countless incidents of this kind to think that the PPP princes will ever intervene. How could they? They are no different.

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Night time tales of sexual harassment in Parika

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