GOAR or GOAT? A tiny history of anti-Indian violence since Independence

Aug 20, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – A group of PNC aligned personalities have formed an organisation named GOAR. It should have been GOAT. Because that is what they are. The formation of GOAR has essentially destroyed the main weapon of Afro-centric politicians in this country who see the galvanisation of Black people and the maintenance of their passion through anti-Indian violence.
If you form an organisation to stem the tide of racism in Guyana, then how are you going to remain alive when anti-Indian street protest is what keeps you alive? Once you beat up Indians then GOAR become GOAT. The people who formed GOAR named it Guyanese Organisation Against Racism. But the perpetuation of racial anger is what has kept these Afro-centric politicians alive since 1992.
Let us trace the history of the origins of “mo fyaah/slo fyaah.” That was not the slogan behind PNC-instigated street mayhem just days after the 1992 election results. But in effect the strategy was to start fires in the commercial centres of Georgetown and sustain them to prevent the PPP from taking power.
As the Carter Centre (with President Carter himself releasing the results of a quick count), made the announcement of a loss by Desmond Hoyte, PNC personnel began to unleash looters on Indian business places. I was monitoring the violence and I saw a Portuguese woman drove up with a pick-up truck with African youths. They began to destroy an Indian business place directly opposite National Hardware on Water Street. I wish I could name her only to say at the time she made curry powder.
That was the beginning of mo fyah/slo fyaah. The flames grew larger in post-election violence 1997 when innocent young Indian girls were viciously attacked in Regent Street. The organisation named GIFT, formed by Ravi Dev and others, documented the atrocities committed on Indian citizens, especially in downtown Georgetown. Indian stores were looted.
Mo fyaah/slo fyaah heated up in post-election violence in 2001. GAWU’s building on Regent Street was burned down, so were many Indian stores. This columnist saw African youths destroying the fire hoses as firemen tried to stop GAWU’s building from burning. Mo fyaah/slow fyaah by then had become the official name of the anti-Indian mayhem.
Mo fyaah/slo fyaah morphed into a Draculean monster in 2002. Anti-Indian personnel from the PNC in Guyana and the PNC diaspora groups arranged a Mash Day jailbreak that took up residence in Buxton. The shape of the anti-Indian violence from 2002 had only one parallel in Guyanese history – the near genocide against Indians in Mackenzie 1964.
The Buxton gunmen were indoctrinated with insane hatred for East Indians in Guyana. Their ideological teachers were Ronald Waddell. Every conceivable African political activist who hated Indians and the PPP journeyed to Buxton. Some of the names would literally shock not only Guyana but the world.
They went about a random killing spree of Indians; the most horrific of these killing fields were the multiple deaths at Nathoo’s Parlour on Pike Street, Kitty, the Lusignan Massacre and Minister Sash Sawh’s family. Well-known climate activist, Dr. Janet Bulkan, wrote about the gunning down of a handyman in Better Hope she once knew. The Buxton gunmen were passing, saw him and just killed him.
Anti-Indian violence abated after the demented gunmen were confronted by the ferocity of extra-judicial personnel of which Roger Khan had a more than passing role. I am getting on in age and hope there comes a time when I could add specific details to the more than 20 columns I did on what happened in Buxton.
I believe not since the almost physical liquidation of Indians in Mackenzie, has modern Guyana witnessed a deliberate attempt to create mass killings of Indians as what was planned in Buxton, 2002-2006. It got me deeply angry when I read a newspaper letter by former WPA leader, Bonita Bone-Harris, who later became the common-law wife of Ronald Waddell referring to him as a non-violent man. To think my wife and I had this woman as our guest in our student apartment in Toronto.
In September 2020 in Region Five, PNC, WPA, ACDA and elements from the AFC tried to resurrect mo fyaah/slo fyaah, once more to deny the PPP and their Indian supporters an electoral victory. Indians were brutally attacked and robbed. The cycle of Mackenzie continued. Buxton and Agricola were asked to participate in the September 2020 mayhem. They declined.
So now we have GOAR to protest anti-African racism. How can GOAR do such while allowing Indians to be attacked unless GOAR become a barefaced GOAT? But even if GOAR becomes GOAT, Indians should never allow a permanent knee on their neck.

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

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