In its history, the police never gave Guyana such a laugh

Jul 23, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Kaieteur News – There is an extension of the term “low-life” that goes beyond its normal connotation. Generally speaking, a low-life is a person who is criminally bent or a shameless person who would stoop lowly to get his/her way at the expense of others. A low-life just does any menial or barefaced act in his/her interest.
In Guyana, the term has gone beyond that. Low-life category also includes people with money or status but not well cultivated to observe moral respect for the well-being and rights of others.
It is not only the mini-bus driver that does not dim when you indicate that his/her high beam is on. I have seen people in expensive cars, no doubt living in mansions who do not know what dimming means when they are driving at nights. Of course, they know what it means. It is just that they are not mannerly enough to dim.
I have seen in Guyana, women wearing Prada and Tommy Hilfiger tops, with lipsticks worth a fortune, living in structures that match the mansions of New York billionaires, throwing garbage onto the roadway from their $80 million SUVs. That is the new definition of low-life. By the way, the second category of low-life includes people from the upper classes including fancy women who barefacedly support rigged elections in Guyana.
I am planning a column on how the seawall from Camp Road to the roundabout at the Kitty pump station is being destroyed by both groups of low-life people. I will include descriptions of what these low-lives are doing.
Anyway, back to the caption of this article. After the Covid-19 restrictions came into force last year, the police blockaded vehicular entrance to the Kingston beach. The beach lies directly behind the Marriott Hotel. Its access to vehicles is only on Battery Road, which lies between Pegasus Hotel and the NCERD building of the Ministry of Education. In case you didn’t know, it was at that very building which now houses NCERD that the indentured servants were registered when they arrived by ship to British Guiana.
Before restrictions, dozens of vehicles would drive onto the beach from Battery Road to party. After the Covid-19 guidelines came into being, the police blocked the entrance with barriers. But they tied the barriers to each other. Drivers have been unloosing the ropes and driving through.
Each time the police see the barriers pushed aside, they tied them together over and over. But last Sunday the police gave Guyanese the biggest joke in its history. The Sunday morning party goers removed the ropes once more. Apparently, someone informed the police of the vandalism.
The police came a few hours after. And the laugh began. When you approach the end of Battery Road at the back gate of both the Marriott and the Pegasus, you cannot see the beach. You have to go down a slight slope. The police arrived with brand new chains and padlocks, unaware that people were still soaking up the sun on the beach. They chained the barriers together, tying them to the back post of each hotel. The chains carried padlocks.
I arrived with my dog and the scene was funny. The imprisoned drivers looked like soulless humans. There was no way they could come out. I drove in search of the police. I found two black-clothes ranks on motorcycles. They were trying to hide their amusement but the security details at NCERD did show their smiling expressions.
What these people did on the beach last Sunday morning should surprise no one. I read about the death of a pillion rider one block away from my wife’s house where she grew up. A motorcycle at the junction of Brummel Place and Brickdam (Brummel Place is the continuation of Louisa Row which runs into Wortmanville) did not stop. Commonsense will tell you that you should stop at any junction where the traffic signals are not working.
When I see how Guyanese behave, I am still (yes still) confused; how the authorities could remove traffic signals at the junction of Vlissengen Road and Carifesta Avenue and put in place, a roundabout. That is lack of commonsense. No one stops at that junction. It is one of the places in her country that my daughter is afraid of since she returned home from studies abroad. I do not use that route and when I have to, fear overcomes me.
Now traffic signals have been removed from the Railway Embankment and Sherriff Street. Guess what? Trust me. I am telling the truth because I use the junction two to three times each day. No driver is stopping. They had to stop when there were traffic lights.

(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---