Together we can help Guyana navigate a safe journey to peace and prosperity

Apr 07, 2022 Letters

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Dear Editor,

As a concerned citizen, I have made unsuccessful efforts to share some thoughts with Vice President, Bharrat Jagdeo in an effort that together we can help Guyana navigate a safe journey to peace and prosperity.
We all know that he is de facto el jefe in Guyana and I have always enjoyed a cordial and respectful relationship with him, but these days friends seem to be too busy to listen to the voices of experience which can be like the proverbial bridge over troubled water.
This seems to be the curse of leaders everywhere.
In Guyana, we continue to take a sordid silly step of stupidity.
After crashing the sham session of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) purported public consultation at Cara Lodge last Tuesday, I was satisfied that this Agency seemed oblivious to its great responsibility to protect our environment, or seemed not to understand what the word environment connotes or what does protection mean.
Hence the haste to vacillate on questions related to the recent oil and gas related project raised by concerned Guyanese.
I have no quarrel with Exxon and the others who explore and harvest our natural resources. Their business is to maximise profits and to keep their shareholders happy. On the other-hand, it is the duty of the government to protect its citizens and to ensure that the people obtain optimum benefits from this bounty of oil, gas and other non-renewable natural resources.
Experience in Latin America, Africa, Asia, Europe and just about everywhere shows that unless the owners of these natural resources can speak on behalf of the masses, evidence shows the majority of citizens will not be the main beneficiaries of our national resources.
Failure to do this constitutes a sordid silly step of stupidity.
The public needs to be reminded that our President while being the Minister in charge of the Housing Sector allowed houses to be built on former cane-fields land without soil-test, so we had houses separated from septic tanks, and in one instance, repairs could not salvage one house, which remained uninhabitable and had to be abandoned.
This means the President had no idea that the environment is a holistic concept.
Sordid silly step of stupidity.
On this note, when our Parliament, even with a myopic speaker, is not meeting to allow for discussion on fundamental issues.
It’s a sordid silly step of stupidity.
When in high places, we can say that our closest neighbours, Trinidad and Tobago, are falling apart. It’s a sordid silly step of stupidity.
Trinidad has welcomed many Guyanese who were rejected by the 1992-2005 Government. Trinidad provides free tuition fees for its children taking the CXC and other examinations, not so in Guyana, even though we are an oil producing country.
It was a Trinidad Prime Minister, Dr. Eric Williams, who in the turbulent 60s hosted at their expense, delegations from the three Parties then (UF, PPP, PNC), in an effort to find a modus vivendi and a pathway to peace.
It appears to me that apart from this slight and undiplomatic remark that certain letters have let the cat out of the bag, one stating that the only Prime Ministers who did good for Trinidad and Tobago, were Basdeo Panday and Kamla Persaud Bissessar, and Guyana’s sudden love making to Suriname, President Chan Santokhi suggests in our polarized societies, a subtle form of racism.
Something, if true, we should all reject as it does no one any good and runs counter to our desire.
If so and it appears to be the case, a sordid silly step of stupidity.
Let me remind all and sundry, that I expressed a concern, when I learnt of the arrangements and agreements signed between 1997 and 2015, these were sordid silly steps of stupidity.
As one who entered the political fray, as a teenager, following my two heroes, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham and who helped in spite of the trickery and turbulence of the cold war, helped set Guyana on the road to Independence.
In a letter published a fortnight ago, I posited that the greatest problem facing Guyana is that there seems to be a loss of morality or moral sense which influences motive in our pursuit of virtue and our avoidance of vicious behaviour, and plays a part in our bestowal of praise and blame.
This failure to have a moral sense is another sordid silly step of stupidity.
A female Constable swears that she was verbally assaulted along with racial slurs while on duty by the son of a former Chancellor, Carl Singh. The young woman offered to take a polygraph test to confirm her allegation. So far, the Government and Police have maintained a deafening silence.
Are we inching towards a police state? If so, heaven help us. A further sordid silly step of stupidity.
Then the case of Hon. Minister Nigel Dharamlall makes an unacceptable remark concerning a high female Judicial Officer.
Then there is the celebrated Statement he made in the National Assembly to a female member about her need for a dildo.
Last week, there was an allegation posted on social media by a Ms. Hussein, inpuning the character of Mr. Dharamlall. Worrisome is that President Ali side-stepped this and other alleged improprieties by the Minister, by his nonsensical statement that Ms. Hussein should make a report to the Police.
Well Constable Shawnette Bollers did so, but it appears that that is the end of the story.
Editor, what is so painful to me is that Min. Dharamlall is part of that illustrious first batch of students to enter President College, the school of excellence. His peers have all distinguished themselves at home and abroad.
What could have happened to Mr. Nigel Dharamlall?
They say “had you not with the crows been found, you would have been all safe and sound.”
His alleged behaviour is beyond belief. Any credible President in the interest of openness and securing integrity of his cabinet and in modicum of respect for his government would have launched a full investigation into these allegations.
Dear Editor, the President, his security advisors, leaders of civil society and leaders of our several religious bodies must know that when we rend the already slender fabric of our society there can be no hope for this generation or is it that the President has no difficulty in fulfilling the prophecy found in the first of the fourth gospels, of a generation of vipers?
These brief remarks are to persuade this generation to speak up by first gaining knowledge of our history so that we can agitate and be truly liberated.
We must defend the sacrifices and sufferings of our noble ancestors and let us honour the words found in the third stanza of our National Anthem, “We are born of their sacrifice, heirs of their pain, and ours is the glory, their eyes did not see One Land of six Peoples, United and Free.”
The words of the Song of the Republic reminds us – “Unyielding in our quest for peace, like ancient heroes brave, to strive and strive and never cease with strength beyond the slave.”

Regards,
Hamilton Green
Elder

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