Come back home? You have to be joking!

Sep 21, 2015 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

A Guyanese mother recently returned home from an overseas vacation. On her way from the airport, she was trailed by bandits who eventually robbed her after she reached her residence.
This is the sort of thing that scares the living daylights out of Guyanese living overseas who may wish to make a return visit home. If you have children and you want to bring them to show them the country in which you were born, reports such as the one above will deter you.
I have already spoken to persons who said they really do not wish to handle the stress of coming home to the sort of crime that Guyana is experiencing. People are just being robbed and shot too easily.
The police have recently been making good progress in solving crimes. Guyana made history recently when there was a reported “hit on credit”, the first time that something like that has ever been heard of. The problem is that we are making news for the wrong reason.
What would be more comforting is that, if apart from solving so many crimes, the police can actually do a lot more work in preventing crimes because for every crime solved there are three or four that are not solved.
There are far too many illegal guns in society for comfort and when it gets dark, there is an inadequate number of police manning the stations and roadways in Guyana.
Guyanese want to come back for a holiday but they have reasons to excuse themselves and to go to some other country where there is less hassle.
I know that some amount of ridicule was posted online about the manner in which Guyana’s top cricketer, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, was treated by the country’s Immigration authorities. I find it shocking that one justification should be that at the time Chanderpaul started his career, most of the present crop of Immigration Officers would have been in diapers.
There is hardly a Guyanese, both at home and abroad, who do not know about this fantastic cricketer who has been one of the greatest servants of Guyanese and West Indian cricket.
And to think that he could be treated so scantily at our country’s airport, to the point where he is not considered as a VIP and is removed from the VIP line is inexcusable. He has done more for this country’s image and for the West Indies that all of the VIPs combined.
If there is an Immigration Officer who does not know the name Shivnarine Chanderpaul, then that would be very surprising indeed and that person ought not to be manning an Immigration check point at the country’s major airport.
It is incidents like the one involving this great servant of West Indies cricket that turn people off from returning home.
The immigration authorities have their work to do and they should not be expected to compromise their standards but anyone who has travelled to Guyana knows that our immigration authorities can be far friendlier and welcoming. In fact the entire atmosphere at the country’s main airport is highly intimidating and this is not what you need to encourage tourists.
One person has written about relatives having to peer through a glass window to witness the check-in of their relatives. Guyana is the only airport in the western world where security is placed at the entrance of the check-in airport to prevent non-passengers from entering. This is a big turn off for visitors also.
A great many Guyanese living overseas would like to return home for Guyana’s 50th Independence anniversary. However, many of them are having second thoughts because of the crime situation.
How many of them are going to come back to the sort of welcome we have at our airports? How many of them are going to come back and risk being the next crime victim.
It is nice to be back in Guyana but safety is a major concern. The way you are treated at your airport is also a big consideration.

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Come back home? You have to be joking!

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