This is the most psychologically disturbed society in the world

Sep 01, 2021 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

Kaieteur News – The same time I read where a pandit was attacked and killed by drunken men for noise nuisance, I saw the face of Mike McCormack, the head of the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) (for the past 45 years) in the Stabroek News in a news item about the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).
What is the connection between the two news items? The EITI functions to safeguard transparency in the extractive industries around the world. Mr. McCormack runs a civil society outfit here that has no transparency at all.
In a letter to this newspaper, the GHRA responded to my criticism of its non-existent nature. No signature was attached to the letter. It is the norm for any organisation to have a name printed on the correspondence it sends out. It is almost impossible to find around the world any institution or organisation that defends itself in the media and it is not signed by either its head or its public relations officer.
It could not happen with the GHRA because the GHRA is Mike McCormack. There was no other person to sign the letter. In that missive, the GHRA set out to prove that it has physiology by stating that it has a board of 12 persons “drawn from all walks of life.” Strangely, for a body that seeks transparency in society the 12 were not named. The 12 could not be named because the 12 do not exist.
So what is the connection between the death of the pandit and my interest in the image of Mr. McCormack in the Stabroek News? It relates to my complaint the past 20 years that the GHRA is a publicity seeker that only comes alive when there is an issue that will bring it publicity, like the inferno at the Camp Street jail.
It does not display at the absolute level any interest in any form of human rights violations. Noise nuisance in a small, compact population that lives on the narrow strip of coastal lands is a terrible problem. But there has never been even half a word dedicated to that social malady by the GHRA. There is a new and sickening form of noise nuisance that if not stopped right now will become a monster. Owners of motorcycles are modifying the exhaust system so the bike can make a louder sound.
The GHRA is not the only indication that this society is seriously disturbed, just look at what functions for civil society in this country. When President Trump declared that the 2020 election was fraudulent, US society was enraged about Trump’s fiction. Academics, the media and civil society did not let up.
Here is Guyana, the worst attempt at rigging a national election lasted five months and only one academic at UG, Dr. Thomas Singh, wrote a letter in the press. Not one women’s group condemned the rigging. There is a LGBT group named SASOD that chose to criticise the visit to Guyana of Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, but not a word on the five-month rigging.
Maybe there is a psychological reason why our LGBT group is more interested in foreign policy than human rights violations. Maybe that group does not want to know what human right violation is for obvious reason. To think such a twisted entity receives a monthly stipend from three diplomatic missions in Guyana is beyond belief. I wonder how that group would make out under the Talibans in Afghanistan.
This society makes you cringe. A family business announces over the past two years the hundreds of billions of dollars (not hundreds of millions) it will be investing in all types of business ventures ranging from gas-to-shore, hotels, export, etc. But this very family told the EPA that it cannot pay a fine of a million Guyanese dollars in one lump sum for polluting one of Guyana’s main rivers.
The Electoral Reform Group says it was formed to press for changes in the election system. But the group is steadfast in its silence on the five-month election rigging. It refuses to issue any statement on its attitude to what took place from March to July 2020. Surely, this has to not only be terrible but clownish.
This is Guyana for you where no academic, no civil society group shows the fundamental instinct of decency to comment on the absolute crazy things that goes on the magistrate bench throughout Guyana. A carpenter or a labourer on a simple larceny charge is put on prohibitive bail, but an accused found with large guns and hundreds of pounds of cocaine get bail. Only the Attorney General has that instinct of decency to express his disgust.

(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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