Latest update November 28th, 2024 3:00 AM

Guyana's largest selling daily and New York's most popular weekly

Latest News

The horrible side of Guyana that didn’t make the news before Christmas

Dec 28, 2014 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

I parked outside the Opus Hotel on Croal Street on December 23 to wait for Leonard Craig to have lunch with. While waiting, I walked up Bourda Street to pick up a few fruits. As soon as I crossed over to the north of Regent Street at Bourda Street, some folks came up to me; “Freddie you have to write about this.”
It was a story of the city police beating up a vendor and seizing his things. I went to the outpost to investigate, but I only had the version of the city police because the vendor had gone. As I stepped onto the road, there was the cry again, “Freddie you have to write about it.”
The very next day at the very same time at the very same spot, I parked waiting to have lunch, this time with Dr. David Hinds. Both Craig and Hinds are horrible with time, so again I went through Bourda Street to pick up fruits at the market. As I traveled north on Bourda Street, the voice said; “Freddie you have to write about this.” Three persons showed me a nasty, horrible sight of a mountain of garbage in front of a gate of Bourda Market that prevents the gate from being opened. As I walked away, I heard the usual chorus; “Freddie you have to write about it.”
I didn’t write about both situations, the reason being that despite a daily column, there just aren’t sufficient column inches to write about the quotidian horrors of this country. This is one of Earth’s hell houses that get worse as time passes. We are nearing the end of 2014 and the ubiquity of decline, despair, decimation and devastation have been so overwhelming that many aspects of Guyana’s terror didn’t make the news. They weren’t mentioned so they could have soaked into the towel of anger that each citizen of this country keeps in his/her pocket.
One such event was the declaration of the Yahoo travel writer that Guyana is the worst place he has visited. That is very bad news indeed and bad is a mild word. Yahoo is a huge company and it is commonsensical to assume that the writer must have covered the entire globe. To make such a definitive statement is a pitiful indictment against any country. Imagine this guy must have traveled to over a hundred countries and he singled out Guyana as the most unbecoming land his eyes set on.
How do the tourism ambassadors feel? How do the people in the Private Sector Commission feel? Was the writer exaggerating? He was not. This columnist got a call from Mr. Glenn Lall about the newspaper’s annual bonus meeting where the speeches are made about the year just gone by.
That meeting was about 90 minutes. When I walked out of Kaieteur News’ offices, in just a few minutes of hard rain, Saffon Street was covered with water. I had to walk in it to get to my car. Look at what the rains did to Bourda Market on Christmas Eve. Those poor vendors lost tremendously. What if that Yahoo travel writer had seen that disaster? He would have dismissed Guyana as a real country
Just before Christmas, with the preoccupation of the season on citizens’ minds, the news that Guyana occupies number fifteen among countries with the highest rate of homicides didn’t make the headlines. This is sickening news. We are just under 800,000 with a huge chunk of that number being children. Yet we are fifteenth on the list of countries with a high homicidal rate. There can only be one interpretation – this is a morbidly violent country where killing comes easily.
What didn’t make the news too because of our Christmas priorities is the announcement by Forbes magazine that Jamaica headed the list of Caribbean countries for 2014 that was best for foreign investors to do business in. For some genetic reason we never come out as number one in anything positive. We are always number one when it comes to the negatives.
Here are some more examples of diseased Guyana. The Trinidadian Government two weeks ago was accused of racial bias in its deportation policy. The accusation was that there were more deportees sent back in 2014 to Africa than elsewhere. The Trinidadian Government was smiling. It trashed its accusers. It showed with graphic statistical evidence that more Guyanese were deported than from any other continent or country. Guyana has the highest suicide rate in the world. We are yet to see the statistics for child molestation, incest and road fatalities, but we must be heading those lists. What a country!

Similar Articles

The Glenn Lall Show | November, 20th, 2024

Follow on Tik Tok @Glennlall

 

THE BLUNT OF THE DAY

Sports

Bakewell supports Kashif and Shanghai Futsal tourney

Bakewell supports Kashif and Shanghai Futsal tourney

Nov 28, 2024

Kaieteur Sports- Long time sponsor, Bakewell with over 20 years backing the Kashif and Shanghai Organisation, has readily come to the fore to support their new yearend ‘One Guyana’ branded Futsal...
Read More
Captains Face Off ahead of Petra-Republic Bank U18 Football League Final

Captains Face Off ahead of Petra-Republic Bank...

Nov 28, 2024

CWI announces women’s squad for multi-format series in India

CWI announces women’s squad for...

Nov 28, 2024

The Mangra Family: Building a Dynasty of Strength and Dedication

The Mangra Family: Building a Dynasty of Strength...

Nov 28, 2024

Windies break home Test drought with 201-run win over Bangladesh

Windies break home Test drought with 201-run win...

Nov 27, 2024

President Ali sees sports as ‘centrepiece’ of Guyana’s transformation

President Ali sees sports as ‘centrepiece’ of...

Nov 27, 2024

Features/Columnists

  • The illusion of compliance

    …Peeping Tom  Kaieteur News- A company can meet the letter of the law. It can tick every box, hit every target. Yet,... more

Publisher’s Note

Freedom of speech is our core value at Kaieteur News. If the letter/e-mail you sent was not published, and you believe that its contents were not libellous, let us know, please contact us by phone or email.

Feel free to send us your comments and/or criticisms.
Contact: 624-6456; 225-8452; 225-8458; 225-8463; 225-8465; 225-8473 or 225-8491.
Or by Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Weekend Cartoon

Bridge Watch

Demerara Harbour Bridge

> Berbice Bridge […]