12 lost men in a nasty cell, dirty court room, in a stink country

Dec 17, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Sometimes nationalism can be the source of power for small minds that cannot contribute anything meaningful to their countries. The source of their nationalism is in fact the abuse of the little power they have. There is a famous quote by Alexander Pope, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”
If you live here, you must change the word, “knowledge” and replace it with “power.” In Guyana there are little mediocre gods with little knowledge who misuse power in sad and dangerous ways. Pope’s famous quote when applied to Guyana should be put in the following way; “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. A little power is even more dangerous.”
In Guyana, twelve men from Nepal, a country far richer, developed, modern, and of course, cleaner than Guyana left Guyana illegally, as claimed by Guyanese immigration, for Venezuela. The Venezuelans deported them back to Guyana. Stink, dirty, underdeveloped Guyana charged the gentlemen with leaving Guyana illegally.
Now you would think that in a country that has no ranking in the world, and that the world does not know exists – and that even Caribbean people don’t want to come and live in – Guyanese police, magistrates and Guyanese in general would have thanked the men for visiting Guyana, asked them if they would like to stay, and given them individual gold medals that were purchased from public donations from those gold miners who declare one-tenth of the gold they acquire from a country that belongs to all of us.
The police charged the men with illegal departure (remember the police did that to a nineteen-year-old Berbician teenager and Magistrate Isaacs sent her to jail for six months for going to Suriname, and sheepish, hypocritical Guyana said not a word about this magistrate’s mental inexplicability, except social activist, Barrington Braithwaite).
Magistrate McLennan refused bail. Then they were fined $30,000 and ordered to be kept in the Brickdam remand until deported. The men felt humiliated. One knelt down before the magistrate, begged and cried (that magistrate must have really tasted the pangs of power; indeed a little power is dangerous).
If you enter a country illegally, you are charged. Venezuela didn’t do that. They posted them back to Guyana. Guyana then should have deported the men. Why remand them? Why fine them and confine them to the Brickdam remand? Then you still have to put them on a plane. Why not do that in the first place? Why humiliate the men like that?
Can anyone imagine what happened to those men’s psychology when they saw the Brickdam lock-ups? I spent three days and three nights there with Mark Benschop over two minor alleged traffic violations. That place is not fit for human beings. To get to the cell, we had to walk through sewage water. The cell was stink and damp, with no place to sleep and non-existent toilet facilities.
I wonder if any of those magistrates that gleefully remand people for little misdemeanours could survive just one hour there.
What about the police station when they were first arrested? Go to the CID office at Brickdam and you would see what a terribly failed state Guyana is. The Nepalese men must have been psychologically tormented to know that they left Nepal and walked right into hell. And to describe Guyana as hell is putting it mildly.
In Greek mythology there is a place that resembles hell named Hades. Even Hades is a paradise when compared to Guyana. Just a quick diversion. My wife and I went Christmas shopping last Sunday. If you want to see hell, go west on the Regent Street pavement from Orange Walk. Stop at Regent and Alexander Streets on the eastern half and look at the gutters. Guyana is indeed hell.
The Guyanese calypsonian, Dave Martins, who is now a tourism ambassador, has to compose a song about that.
What about the magistrates’ courts? The men must have wondered if they were in a sheep pen rather than in a modern court of law. Surely, it can’t be all that bad in Nepal. This is how Guyana treated twelve Nepalese whose only crime was that they left Guyana illegally.
If this country isn’t one horrible nightmare for a country, then how else can you describe it? Why did the police charge those men in the first place? Why not detain then deport? Why this humiliation of twelve men who were not criminals? Well I hope Trinidad, Canada and the US do not treat illegal Guyanese migrants so terribly. But then again, no other country has the species of police and magistrates as Guyana.

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12 lost men in a nasty cell, dirty court room, in a stink country

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