Speak softly, deliver a big lash

Jun 22, 2024 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths by GHK Lall

Kaieteur News – Lean on President Ali to deliver on his promise about transparency and the floodgates of his impatience crash.  Critics and contrarians are railed against; but he is all for constructive criticisms.  The Americans just responded to his appeal.  Excellency Ali has a choice.  He continues with his imperious braggadocio.  Or he gets a new hymnbook.  The musicians in the Office of the President had better come with some new songs, new notes for the president to deliver.

Yes, I heard President Ali’s PPP Government loud and clear: this is serious stuff and there is serious commitment.  Frankly, Mr. President, that charade is thin and worn.  Holes are apparent.  Who will investigate?  The GPF?  SOCU?  It is like being trusted to investigate themselves.  The corruption rivers run too long and too deep in this country, Dr. President.  It is because a big part of the accountability so lavishly sworn to at the National Cultural Center almost four years ago, Excellency, has never gotten off the ground.  Smoke and shams and shadows and the sordid, Mr. Head of State, is what has run wild in the last four years. The Americans (Treasury’s OFAC) have spoken; the volume is earsplitting.  Who are the dissidents now, I ask starting with the esteemed president?  Who is straight speaking and who is insidious now, I ask of all Guyanese?

This much has been said to the face of President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Attorney General Nandlall (and the whole world): when business is straight, then anyone and everyone can talk straight.  I can and I do.  None of this fudging about and slipping around that has become the norm is necessary.  The resources of the people do not have to be wasted on witch hunts for dirt to silence the outspoken, who can do so because their own business is straight.  The agents of either the party (PPP) or the PPP Government should be redirected at those who are the real lawbreakers in Guyana.  I challenge my fellow citizens: check first who speaks freely and frankly in this country, and the efforts that have been made to suppress.  Then, check who are the ones that are always playing games with words, or lashing out at law-abiding Guyanese, or hiding behind various barricades.  It is the duty of every citizen of this country to decide for themselves if any of those three caps fit the heads of those that I mentioned, and if so, then why it is so.  Matters have a way of coming full circle.  I move along.

OFAC named three Guyanese.  I have met, spoken to, and know only the oldest.  We have had strong and sharp conversations at official locations on official business.  The allegations are devastating, the developments terribly disappointing.  It is the best that I can offer.  I watch the horizon to absorb what develops going forward.  Generally speaking, I can confidently say that the building blocks were piling up: the high-ranking female public servant stopped; her phone seized; her records unscrambled; her relationships revealed.  The appearance of the interdiction alone would have prompted an honest government to cut its losses there and then by sending her packing.  It is what leaders with the best of principles, the highest self-regard, would deliver and damn the interfering, infernal Yankees.  Damn their torpedoes, for there is nothing for them to strike.  People who do their business (and the people’s business) cleanly, live cleanly, could give a damn about pressure and sanctions.  Because there is nothing that anyone from anywhere could pin on them. Honourable leaders do not have those kinds of friends, do not cultivate relationships of those qualities, do not ask for, or take their kindnesses.  Men and women of principle are wise enough (those who are untarnished) not to toy with fire.  Now the fire of the Americans is aimed not just at an alleged network, but all those dodgers and drifters and deniers in a highly rotten government, and the people who prop it up with a matchstick here, hold it together with a rubber band over there, and paint it smoothly with spittle and slop.  Blow too hard on their deformed contraptions, and the whole façade crumbles.  The Americans only puffed.  Careful! It could be the precursor to a loud sneeze.

Knowing as well as I do how the Americans operate, they would have gathered all their marbles. The first question is how many of those will be handed to the PPP Government.  What size and how brightly colored is the second.  As a reminder, Americans do their homework, cover all the bases, and know the escape routes.  They are watching to ascertain how much traction there will be from what they have parachuted into the highest offices in Guyana.  I think that the time for blinking and playing the fool by the PPP Government and its leaders is over; has been so for a long time now.  If anyone anywhere is impressed by that hand-over-heart oath from the government with its excrement about “respect for the rule of law and order” then a strong shot of hard liquor or morphine is recommended.  It is laughable, indeed, when this country, this PPP Government, this leadership cabal (with few exceptions) have a history of being rather scurrilous (re political ways), rather careless with personal ethics, and rather odious in verbal conduct.

In Murder in the Cathedral, it was T.S. Elliot who wrote: the greatest treason is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.  I totally disagree.  It is doing the wrong thing over and over and then deceiving the people who trust, even revere.

(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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• crash, critics, GHK Lall, impatience, President Ali

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