Impossibility of Buxton 2: An analysis

Jan 04, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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Kaieteur News – As I wrote in my December 22, 2021 column, readers do not like to digest a series of article on a particular subject each day. With that in mind, I have only published up to part 3 of the implications and consequences of the PNC’s recent congress. I will shortly resume the series. I will also continue the series of looking back on Guyana in 2021.
A quote taken from a video was sent to me on the first day of this year of something Mark Benschop said about fireworks on the last night of 2021. I read the statement five times and when I studied it, I came to the decision to do this column.
I am convinced from my knowledge of the way the dialectics work in Guyana that Buxton mayhem 2 is impossible to re-enact in any place, any enclave in Guyana. There is a long held myth about the Buxton mayhem (BM); it was generated by the killing in Buxton of Shaka Blair by the black clothes unit of the police force consisting of well-known officers like Leon Fraser, “Robo-Cop” and Steve Merai.
If there was no such killing, BM would still have happened. What did occur was that the Blair incident was a galvanising point for the BM gunmen because they knew Blair well and he had a posse of teenagers who did his drug trafficking for him. Those youths were easy recruits for an anti-Indian agenda, which was shaped by people like Ronald Waddell and a certain deadly racist in the WPA.
BM was a response to the fear of two sets of societal actors that the PPP was poised to run Guyana forever. One group was a modicum of politicians from the PNC and the WPA. The other entity was associated with the world of African existence with the ideology of African entitlement.
It was from the second group that the idea to spring the prisoners from the Camp Street jail was made. One of the ironies of my life was that the strategic mind behind the jailbreak was someone who liked me even until his death even though I did extensive journalistic research to expose the political fulcrums of BM. That person was attorney, Mortimer Codette (Morty), the founder of GUYOIL.
Some mysteries will forever haunt you, and Codette’s fondness for me is something I will never understand. During the intensity of BM, Tacuma Ogunseye sued me for libel and Morty was Ogunseye’s lawyer. Morty told me he will never go through with it and he didn’t.
Space will not allow for a profound analytical discussion on why BM2 is impossible. Crude brevity will have to be done to the analysis. One – no Black village in Guyana 19 years after BM has the fertile breeding ground for BM2. Guyana is completely different from February 2002 when the jailbreak took place.
Two – in 2002, there were no smart phones, no social media, no Giftland, no MovieTowne. Desperate African racists cannot get African youths in any village to go on an anti-Indian rampage in 2022. Three – the lunatic fringe that descended on Buxton and mingled with the gunmen are older now and have left Guyana permanently where they live the good life and use radio programmes and social media to massage their egos.
Four – the intellectual authors of BM are much older (some have died like Morty) and do not have the command they did in 2002. Five – those from the American diaspora who financed the Mash 2002 jailbreak will find themselves in trouble with the FBI in 2022. Six – there is no dreaded black clothes unit in the police force that instills fear in village youths as the Leon Fraser team did in the late 1990s.
Seven – the escaped prisoners were gunmen for the drug lords and shady business people. This lumpen proletariat existence is gone from Guyana simply because the massive narcotic empire no longer exists in Guyana. Eight – the nature of the police force and the army has changed since BM started. At the recent PNC congress, Edward Collins won a seat. In the APNU government after 2015, Winston Felix was Minister. Collins headed the army and Felix the police force during BM.
Nine – Guyana 2022 does not resemble Guyana 2002. There are billions and billions of American dollars invested in the oil industry in a country where the US sees that oil as being of strategic value. It is doubtful the US would allow BM 2 to create instability. Ten – Mr. Jagdeo has an encyclopedia in his head as to what happened in Buxton. His response will be a no-nonsense one. Eleven – certain political actors who embraced BM have become outdated. Twelve – Guyana will not tolerate another Buxton killing orgy.
(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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