Six reasons I am on the picket line today outside the AG’s office

Dec 03, 2015 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

If you read this column before 11 a.m. today, you can find me outside the Office of the Attorney-General. There is a picket there for Vibert Butts calling for justice for this football hero. Butts was sentenced to four years for possession of small amounts of marijuana. Butts rose to fame when I was pretty young and was enrolled as a UG student in history. He scored the first World Cup goal for Guyana in 1976. It was during the preliminary round against Suriname. At his trial, where he was unrepresented, Butts acknowledged the stuff was his but said he used it as a Rastafari brethren for health and religious reasons (see my Friday, November 27 column; “I wonder who Vibert Butts voted for?”)
Butts vehemently denied he was trafficking in the stuff. I have seen countless Rastafari adherents had their lives destroyed because of the usage of marijuana not for the purpose of trafficking but for personal use. It is a modern tragedy in this country that proves how cruel and backward is the politics of this land and how unfit are many post-colonial leaders to rule their countries.
This land is self-destructive. There are more than a thousand Rastafarians in Guyana. There are thousands of young people that enjoy a marijuana cigarette in this land. Yet they didn’t vote for the Rasta party in the May General Elections. Yet they voted for politicians whose skin colour is dark, brown and black but less modern than the White man that these politicians love to demonize in order to get your votes.
The Magistrates are fools not to order community service for small amounts of ganja when the accused is found guilty, but the Magistrates can argue that they didn’t make the law. The law was made by Desmond Hoyte, the same Desmond Hoyte that needed the same marijuana-smoking young men to join him in his campaign of ‘mo fyah-slo fyaah’ against the PPP regime.
During the 1999 Public Service Union strike when young protestors slept outside the wharves to stop scabs and strike-breakers, they had their ganja with them. I saw them smoking it during the strike in the late evenings. Three of them are still my friends. During the Buxton crime spree 2002-2005, certain politicians (the country would be shocked to know who one of them was) mixed with Buxtonian young men who smoked openly in front of them
Poor Vibert Butts! I feel sorry for him for five reasons; I don’t believe he was trafficking. Two – he has three young kids the oldest being eight years. Three – he deserved community service which the law provides for small amounts because he is a football hero. This country is unbelievable. A cricket hero wants a diplomatic passport while a football hero goes to jail for smoking pot. Four – Butts did not only excel in playing football but together with my brother “Lightweight” Kissoon, he kept football alive in South Georgetown and created many gifted young footballers. The fifth reason is that politicians use people like him and then discard them.
My friends in the AFC told me a certain AFC Minister told a group of AFC youth leaders that the elections are over and he is a Minister and they must relate to him as such. Clairmont Lye wrote a newspaper letter lamenting the attitude of a certain Minister. Lincoln Lewis was devastating in his critique of another APNU Minister’s mistreatment of people. This is how politicians become when power is attained.
I am picketing for Butts this morning for a sixth reason. This country cries out for judicial reform. Too many young people who are first offenders are going to jail. The sentence structure must do away with that. This country is cruel to poor people. A sadistic employer robs his employee. The employee fights back by stealing from him. A mediocre Magistrate, who would starve in private practice, jails him. His life is destroyed. You can steal from an employer and be jailed. But has there been any recorded case where a businessman is imprisoned for writing a “bounced” cheque?
I am picketing today to put pressure on our post-colonial leaders to reform the marijuana laws. The police seem to be interested only in arresting young men for smoking ganja, not the cocaine barons. Khemraj Ramjattan is a dear friend and someone I like and admire immensely. But my advice to him is to leave that Ministry immediately. The corrupt, incompetent police force is going to damage his career. Khemraj has chalked up a good legacy. A depraved police force is going to destroy it sooner than later.

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Six reasons I am on the picket line today outside the AG’s office

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