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Fires or attempts at something?

Jul 15, 2020 Editorial

Fires, or intents towards great conflagrations, speak for themselves. Instead of making a pronouncement first, we begin by asking a few searching questions of our audience to stir some reasoned thinking. Since these fires are not of the run of the mill variety – that is, crimes of passion as in domestic disputes, or bitter personal disagreements – we urge the most careful degree of circumspection.
Why these actions and results and on the heels of each other in the span of a few short days? Why of such conclusive and attempted felonies as aimed at what are state operated institutions only? And why such flurry of fires (incomplete at this early time, as we believe) at this particular tense and controversial juncture of our governance difficulties? What kind of atmosphere is being cultivated and for what purposes? What kinds of messages are intended to be delivered, and as based on what kind of leadership and governance visions?
We know nothing and we point no finger at anyone. We lift not a sinew at anyone as being directly or indirectly responsible. But, the other side of this coin, is that we are nowhere as stupid or disconnected as some would like to believe or may have already concluded. We may be, but Guyanese thinkers are not. The Guyanese may be, but the rest of the region and the universe of the involved international community are not.
So where does this leave us, if in nothing else and nowhere but a bad place, the worst and darkest of places. We may have decided, at a political level in our underground political backrooms that if there is no yielding, then there has to be moving to and travelling along a different road. It is a road, if so chosen that would lead only to a terminal of tragedy. We pause to take a close look.
First, there was the attempt at the Suddie Court on the Essequibo that, thankfully, was stopped before it really started. Second, it was almost a replica of the same story that unfolded at the Umana Yana. Vandals and accidents look out of the question, and even to be ludicrous in the contemplation. Third, the unsteady tranquility of Sunday afternoon was burnt to the ground, which is to what and where the Lusignan holding facility (a jail by another name) was reduced. We have heard from the lips of officials that it was due to the prisoner spillage that resulted from search for and seizure of contraband. But before that somewhat troubling, somewhat comforting, development, which is good as any (or better than most), the rumours ran riot.
They were of orchestration with sinister agendas in mind, such as intimidation and worse. It is the Pandora’s Box, the powder keg that is Guyana’s unrelenting and ruthless politics. And surging sharply among the waves of eyewitness, second-hand, and double vision reports was one of numerous prisoners, as much as in the hundreds, who made good their escape. This is the kind of sharp and piercing tenterhook, the psychologically punishing circumstances, on which Guyanese are suspended, and under which they huddle.
And as if all of those preceding three incidents involving flames were not enough, in the early hours of Tuesday morning the Guyana Police Force, Criminal Investigation Department office at Anna Regina, Essequibo Coast was set alight. This was one of two acts of arson on the Essequibo Coast with an earlier fire destroying an abandoned Guyana Defence Force base at Maria’s Lodge.
Then there was the alarming confirmation of the government building that went up in flames. It was not any ordinary government building, but at this crucial time, a most sensitive one in a GECOM office. And then it was not in any old place, but in Wismar, of all locations.
With this particular fire, this unusual office, this special place, and at this irregular time, the word was spreading, the tensions intensifying, and the messages inciting. Amidst a false electoral calm, a storm was brewing, and it has been a long time coming. The first reflexive call was for vigilance, as if anybody is asleep. The second was more of a pointed allegation, a political one: others are bent on mischief and are undermining.
Now who is fooling whom, with smokescreens intended to place responsibility at the feet of opponents. Vileness is afoot. Guyana is on trial (by fire).

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