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Canadian electoral neutrality

Dec 07, 2020 Letters

DEAR EDITOR,
I note with amusement SN’s coverage of the remarks of the outgoing Canadian High Commissioner. Clearly, Her Excellency, Ms. Lillian Chatterjee, has been here too long, as some of what Guyana represents seems to have rubbed off on her.
Not the positive things mind you; but all the unbecoming things that this country is about at its nasty, dirty, sickly core.
“Canada does not take sides.” My word! I cannot believe that the mighty Ms. Chatterjee stumbled so awkwardly.
Apparently, she did not learn anything from her counterpart in the American diplomatic community, who I am sure would have said to her: go tell that to the marines!
It is now obvious that Ms. Chatterjee has a selective memory of particular ingenuity. Canada does not take side, she says, but somehow, she forgot to stay on her side of the fence, as convention demanded.
For there she was, one ubiquitous presence, near the GECOM battlefield, the Arthur Chung Conference Center, and some building named Ashmin’s now etched in Guyanese electoral infamy. In view of her avian presence, there were no sides that were sturdy enough that could have kept her (and Canada) away from the magnetisms of Guyana’s elections circuses.
And this is what the magician from Montreal (or wherever) calls sovereignty honoured and democracy delivered. Come to think of it, the people who are guests here were more pronounced in their presences than even someone like me, who is actually from here.
And to hear the esteemed High Commissioner tell it, “All we want was for the will of the people to be respected.” Whose will and which people may I be bold enough to inquire. T
o ask and answer, just in case the Canadian High Commissioner has an attack of honesty and remembers diplomatic reserve and, thus, refrains from responding.
It would be the will of the White House and Houston, and the will of the operating arm (of both) the United States State Department.
It is the will of the local oil people, which is the will of the PPP (which promised a king’s ransom in return) and the will of the PNC (whose people sold on promises of payment for silence) when the going soured.
That is the democracy Canada proudly presented here. And when the deed that endangered Guyana (from oil losses and Venezuelan vindictiveness) was done, the High Commissioner rapidly retreated to her side of the barricades.
Let stupid, ignorant Guyanese fight over the kind of democracy gifted and what it means for them.
Like the PPP and PNC, Excellency Chatterjee, suddenly lost her capacity for ubiquity and garrulity over the byproducts of democracy.
On Guyana’s elections, this was democracy without diplomatic decency, democracy without diplomatic credibility. Perhaps, on her way to Lester Pearson, she can stop off in Atlanta and offer democracy lessons to the people of Georgia.
What we had here was not democracy, not by a long shot. What we had was a massive display of shock and awe for the natives, compliments of American hegemony, and Canadian (and European) perversity.
Editor, I urge thinking about this: if the PNC had agreed to American demands, then its electoral ascendancy was assured.
That would have been termed democracy, too; and the will of the people, too. Just like what occurred with one LFS Burnham. To its credit, the crafty PPP picked up the PNC pieces and made them into the whole cloth of elections success, as powered by people who don’t take sides. Today, the PPP is democracy’s darlings, because the people over there say that is what it is, and what things will happen.
Either way, Guyana would have gotten what ABC, E, and LA were dishonest enough to label democracy.
For the last time, it was not of the will of local people, but of those political people who decided that it was healthier to respond properly to the will of the people from the irresistible north side. And of whose implacable will, even Ms. Chatterjee and her Canadian contingent were pawn and part.
This they name democracy. Guyanese may be stupid. Just don’t include me.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall

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