A score and ten and bating more powerfully

Apr 04, 2024 News

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By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Thirty years is a long time to be in any business. It is a good, solid number in the Guyana media business. What started from nothing is now a big something, a special something for numerous Guyanese, and a must read for foreigners. The candle of long ago is now a flame that flashes ever so brightly across the towns and villages of Guyana, reaches Guyanese in New York in weekly paper form, and informs readers wherever they are around the world.

Looking for a hard story that others shrink from, then Kaieteur News is the paper to be reading. Seeking a story about the nitty-gritty of the streets and rough places of Guyana then look no farther, than Kaieteur News.  But most of all, if the interest is in the richness of Guyana, and the vast significance of its natural resources’ wealth, the record is that there is no other than Kaieteur News. This has been the story and life of KN day after day, and with frank and fearless coverage about what matters most of all: the oil wealth of all the peoples of Guyana.

First, there must be this disclosure.  It has been seven years since I have had some association with the Waterfalls paper.  It is the fourth of five Guyanese publications in which I contribute regularly, part of the continuing public service that I offer to all Guyanese.  Frankness requires this statement: there were times when the difference was great, the distance wide.  Today, the differences are less, but still present to some degree.  If there were complete and constant oneness of mind, then there would be no thinking, no distinguishing, no participating that is true to what has to be both a calling and a cause.  As much as there is an understanding that sex and violence and mayhem are what the public feasts on, and turns over the engine of the machine daily, there is always the remembering of what Kaieteur has come to make its reason for being.

Aside from the blood and busted vehicles and battered people, there has been dogged reporting about corruption under all the governments.  If there is one deformed Guyanese component that could be identified without fear of contradiction, it is the rampaging corruption that is both the national political culture and uninterrupted condition.  KN has been all over that, and without letup in its 30 years of media life.  PPPC, PNC, or APNU+AFC, and it has always been the same, with the struggling Guyanese taxpayers never getting a breather, always carrying the costly load, and crying out over this national pestilence.  Covering and writing about corruption in Guyana is a dangerous occupation for independent media houses.  Pointing to the crimes of unnamed politicians has proven to be a fatal way to earn a living.  Some good people have been lost along the way, and that grief is an unforgettable part of the Kaieteur News life story. Speaking to the raw truth about government and leaders in Guyana places those doing so in harm’s way.  It is not for nothing that governments have a loaded armory of weapons, men at the ready, and the money to replenish those to deal with those who stand in their way.  Kaieteur News knows that it stands in the way, and it will not get out of the way.  Leaders and followers in the PPP Government and the PNC and AFC opposition have to get accustomed to that; or learn to coexist with what is a promise, what is now an unchanging practice.

Now the arrival of great underwater lakes of oil should be a blessing for all citizens.KN has carried again and again (and then some more) how this oil has become a blight on the hopes of the Guyanese people.  Weak leadership, compromised politicians, and sellout national governments are not the stuff of the squeamish.  But it is what has been encountered, and all the bad blood developed for not retreating.  Through thick and thin, Kaieteur News has cut through the layers of darkness to bring as many rays of light as it can to the Guyanese people.  It has not been easy, but we can never be faulted for not trying, persisting, and succeeding.  For KN, oil news is more than a routine news story, a diversity in the menu of daily media fare at KN.  Oil rests on the pinnacle of the promises that should be, those that should have already materialized in some tangible forms.  It has not been so.  Oil news is about the kind of destiny that every Guyanese should have: on that is wonderful, delightful, and full of thanksgiving for the generous endowments given to this land.  It is not of the type, of the soggy substance, of the sickly color that the present, and previous, government, have worked to make possible for 800,000 Guyanese born and bred of this land, and those who spring from their blood and this land.  This is where Kaieteur News has come into its own, carved out a niche, and stands in a place all by itself.  Oil is not a commodity, but so much more.  Oil is not only about a great national patrimony, but also of what is incomparable that makes the impossible possible.  Oil is more than a dream.  Oil is about all those things, and then it is of the grand national destiny of the Guyanese people that has been so slippery to the grasp, so elusive in the experience.

This is what KN has made its mantra from the day of the first announcement that some oil has been found.  On occasion, there has been a moment of faltering or two; but never has there been any letting up on the fulsomeness of the national vision, and the ferocity of the spirit.  This is the call of duty that is owed to, must be delivered to, the Guyanese people.  This is whether they agree with the material in the newspaper or not, open their minds to welcome what is presented, or turn their backs in disinterest and disillusion.  If the fight of the bold and brave is not led by Kaieteur News, then few and frequently frail are those remaining to push forward with the charge that must be courageous, if it is to mean anything at all.  If not for the work and light represented by KN, then the invaders and now greedily grasping exploiters, with their sickly local partners in government and business, would sell the same old song to the poor and beaten down of Guyana.  They would tell Guyanese how they have their backs, and their best interests at heart, while they partner with the outsiders to raid and rip out the people’s treasures.  This is the big billboard of lying liars and the damned lies that they tell.

When they don’t try to sabotage the operations of Kaieteur News, they have worked aggressively to shut it down.  One hole after another has been dug.  This is part of the obscene environment that passes for leadership and governance in Guyana.  The storms have been weathered; the paper is still standing.  We appeal to those with the power in their hands: bring about a better way for Guyanese, and let it be a better day.  Give the Guyanese people what is fair and right, and get a friend in KN.  Do what is beneficial for every single citizen and there will be harmony of ideas, and consciences that are at peace.  It has been a long road, but an exciting one.  There have been good times and times that can never count as good.  Good has prevailed, as it always does.  The times ahead in this new and sparkling era of oil in Guyana holds a barrage of challenges.  KN’s past has prepared it well for the present, and on the foundations of those there is readiness to face the future and whatever it holds.

We can and will promise the readership of this Kaieteur Newspaper that the same fearlessness will be manifested in the unending quest for truth and justice for all Guyanese.  When the pursuit of fairness stands as the essential substance in our mind, in the genes, then there is mightiness that cannot be defeated. God bless all Guyana.  Thanks to all Guyanese for the support extended over the years, be such through moral force, or in the power of silence, or by any other means. It has been my privilege to be a small part of the journey that is 30 years old today.  A joyful 30^th birthday to the entire Kaieteur News family.

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• business, GHK Lall, Guyanese, New York, powerfully

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