Focus on oil $ instead of ethnic rage

Sep 12, 2020 Letters

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DEAR EDITOR,

Instead of focusing their attention on how to increase oil revenues to enrich the country, regrettably, people are engaging in ethnic rage, fighting each other over virtually nothing – I mean coconuts and husks and territorial space to grow weed which lands people in jail and attract the attention of US anti-drug agency. While they are fighting over nothing, outsiders are running away with the oil $, over US$1.25 billion this year and billions more come next year. Guyana gets less than 10 percent of revenues (when expenses are deducted) and the foreigners more than 90% for themselves and shareholders. Guyanese are the owners of the oil and they get virtually nothing for it. Political leaders from the preceding government signed away the nation’s inheritance. And now people want President Irfaan Ali to magically clean up the mess left behind by failed politicians.
If our share of oil increases, say to 20% of revenues or more, we don’t have to worry about picking dried coconuts, partaking in revenge killings, planting ganja, engaging in choke and rob and kick down robberies, blocking roads to hustle illegal tolls, and sowing social discord. With that kind of oil revenues expected from next year, every Guyanese could get large cash grants with a lot remaining for national development. Guyana’s development will take off like a jet engine. We will become a Hong Kong or a Singapore or Taiwan by the end of the decade.
People must not listen to discredited politicians who governed terribly for five years after being given a one in a lifetime opportunity to administer a good government. That same set of crooked politicians is ‘encouraging’ supporters to engage in an orgy of ethnic violence and robbing people to sow discord so as to direct attention away from their terrible governance and electoral fraud.
All politicians and the population at large need to get their act together and focus on the big prize, the oil $. Opposition politicians must stop politicizing violence and using supporters for race baiting to shore up individual or party base of support. Credit goes to Volda Lawrence for appealing to Africans to stop the violence against Indians.
On the murder of the two Henry boys, it was clearly it was not race or politics related. The father of one of the boy’s asked PNC supporters not to engage in any revenge acts because it was not race related. He said he had excellent relations with Indians in the neighbourhoods and that they were helpful to him.
It appeared that the killings were not praedial larceny related. Sources say regular farmers had nothing to do with the killing. The people held for questioning could not have done those killings. Anyone who studies criminology would recognize right away that the manner in which the Henry boys were killed and the revenge killing of Haresh Singh had some deep link with organized crime. There were signs about the bodies that gave hints about the nature of the crime. The police and national security officials should have picked up the signs very early if they knew much about patterns of crime.
In sociology, there is subfield called Criminology where one is taught to look for signs of anything unusual about a murder. Crime scenes and bodies are littered with evidence. Forensic experts and criminologists could right away form tentative conclusions about a crime. (I am not a criminologist although I took courses in the subject when I did a PhD in Sociology). As soon as I saw pictures of the gruesome killings, I looked at the cut marks and I knew right away they were not ordinary killings of farmers protecting their property. There was something deep about the cuts and the killings. A message was being sent as is normal in these kinds of killings. I told friends that much when we discussed the brutality of the chopping, ghastly appearance of the bodies. The killers were sending a message. The chopping of the Indian kid was somewhat of ‘a revenge’ but it also had another message and it was carried to deflect the motif behind the Henry killings. A criminologist would have known. How could the police (detectives, investigators, intelligence gathering) and security officials not known early about the nature of the killings? They should have had intelligence from people on the ground Investigators must look at all angles. The truth would come out soon.
When protests began very early by political entrepreneurs, why weren’t police, para-military and GDF mobilized very early and posted on locations? Didn’t the authorities expect political opportunists to exploit the situation to create mayhem? Any sociologist or political scientist or national security expert would have predicted violence and revenge killings. Why weren’t deterrent actions taken? Heavily armed forces should have patrolled the area from day one to rein in the race baiters. The authorities should have made an example of those engaged in criminal acts and race violence.
On the violence, Ruel Johnson is right in stating that beating, robbing, and killing Indians, damaging their properties, and molesting (raping) Indian girls are not acts of liberating Africans. Those who engaged in and promoted such acts must be condemned and brought to justice. Evidence is available on videos. Examples must be made of them including politicians to prevent the country from descending into a crescendo of communal violence and inferno.
The police and Home Affairs need to step up their investigative and intelligence agencies to detect crimes and to take deterrent actions. Security agencies need to work closely with experts at the Sociology Department at UG or consult security experts from the diaspora. During the 1970s and early 1980s, UG had an excellent Sociology Department with criminologists. It should be rehabilitated. The police, criminologists, and national security experts have their work cut out.

Yours truly,
Vishnu Bisram

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