“We could never do that, never!”

Dec 24, 2017 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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As a senior minister from the Alliance for Change said this week, activists in that Party would never stoop so low as to even think about putting out a press release maliciously alleging that a minister in the Granger administration tried to rape a married woman in his office this week.
“We could never do that, never!” said the minister after he had heard reports about the alleged rape of the wife of a Ministry of Agriculture employee who had gone to the ministry to conduct business, but was pounced upon and nearly raped.
But a letter writer hiding under the name of ‘Arnold Sanasie’ made that very allegation on Thursday, sending out the missive to a massive E-mail group that caters to nearly every media house, local and international correspondents and social media news outlets.
The release to the group sent reporters scurrying to verify the reports that a minister would have been crazy enough to try to rape a visiting married woman at his office in broad daylight, during working hours, while his secretaries are active and present, while security and other officials are around, and think he would get away with it.
Calls were immediately made to the not so large group of Guyanese surnamed Sanasie, and it was quickly explained that only one elderly gentleman living on the lower East Bank goes by that Christian household “call” name. His legal name is not a Christian but a Hindu name.
The gentlemen lives quietly in his community and is known to have little interest in politics.
So quick Google checks of previous letters and releases under the name Arnold Sanasie came up with some interesting facts, and as people would rightly suspect, all roads led straight to Freedom House on Robb Street, and media outlets that are known to be friendly to the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
Letters attacking members of the governing Coalition litter the media landscape, particularly Citizens Report, I-News and Guyana Times.
Arnold Sanasie has persistently resisted calls to emerge from the shadows, to come out in the open, debate and defend the slew of malicious and sometimes libelous allegations he had made under a pseudonym over the years. Some of the letters attacking APNU and the AFC, separately, have been published by the friendly media outlets as far back as 2011. Yet no one knows who Arnold Sanasie is.
This week’s letter will certainly discredit Arnold to such an extent that no media house, barring the three listed above, would consider publishing anything from Arnold going forward as there is now incontrovertible proof that he is a ghost writer, working for the PPP; hiding in dark shadows and hurling invective at credible, hardworking folks.
For the sake of the public, here is the release forwarded to media houses on Thursday as it sent colleagues and security officials scrambling to investigate the alleged and now discredited incident.
“On Monday, December 18, 2017, the wife of an employee of the Ministry of Agriculture was assaulted by the Minister, whose office is in Kingston. The woman was at the Ministry of Agriculture to conduct some business. On arriving at the Ministry of Agriculture, she was directed to an office. On entering the office, she was assaulted by the Minister. In putting up a fight and resisting his advances, there was a commotion. The commotion in the office caused other staff members to rush to the office. Had the staff members not rushed to the office, Editor, the woman would have been raped.
The terrified woman rushed out of the office. Another staff member recognised her as the wife of a Ministry of Agriculture staff member and advised her to leave. The Minister was abusive to the staff members also.
Editor, you would think that this was the end of the incident, but it is not. After rushing to her car and driving away, she was followed the Minister. The result of his action was that he crashed into the woman’s vehicle on Shiv Chanderpaul drive. It is God’s grace that the woman was not alone when all of this occurred.”
But a very upset Agriculture Minister Noel Holder was unprepared to let this allegation pass without dismissing it for what it is worth. Within minutes of learning about the allegation, he described Arnold Sanasie’s scenario as a virtual impossibility.
“As far as I am aware no other minister came to this ministry to see me on Monday and I am certainly aware that there is no office in this ministry that any other minister occupies.
Things of this nature can sully a person’s reputation. I have had a good reputation all of my life for 72 years and I don’t want it sullied now. I am also aware that things of this nature could go viral, and very often once it gets into the public arena it’s very difficult to remove this stain and attempt to put a smear on your character.
As far as the incident that is reported, I cannot see it involving this ministry. I have had no reports from either the administration of the ministry or the security that any incident of this nature occurred within this compound”, Minister Holder explained.

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