Adriana – unburied and unforgotten

May 11, 2025 Features / Columnists, The GHK Lall Column

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Hard Truths…

By GHK Lall

Kaieteur News- Adriana Younge is still unburied.  She is unburied and unforgotten.  So, where are we?  Where are we heading?  In Texas, they had a rallying cry: Remember the Alamo.  In Guyana, the charge is: Remember Adriana.  On each occasion that I think that the memory of Adriana Younge has stilled, her soul rests in peace, there is this miracle.  The name Adriana has more lives than that of a cat and a centipede combined. It is extremely difficulty to vanquish one, near impossible to banish both at the same time.

The more Guyanese are told, the less they trust.  The government retains the services of a retired Canadian sleuth, and he is shutdown.  On the government payroll, therefore in the government pocket.  I hope that President Ali, Vice President Jagdeo, and Attorney General Nandlall recognize the monster that they created.  Even if they pretend not to, or just don’t care, this is where Guyanese are with whatever comes of their mouths – the lush triumvirate, not the populace.  No trust.  No reliability.  No inspiration and no interest.  For those who disdain and dispatch political propaganda, this is the place where Guyana finds itself.  Shaky and riddled with national uncertainty, anxiety.

This is what duplicity breeds.  The longer the duplicity ran, the more it scarred and tripped up Guyanese.  The main men still give themselves high-fives.  Meanwhile, this society is six feet under.  One pathologist, then three of them, and their work is dismissed.  Another one is threatening a lawsuit.  A country crumbles.  Pres. Ali is still on his own handmade Titanic, with his orchestra going.  Dr. Jagdeo takes a backseat, but his name is on the hotseat.  Look at what has been created, sir.  Knowing eyes observe him.  Then, the man of law has run out of law.  So, what is left?

There is the new dogfight in the middle of Stabroek Square Garden and Guyana’s Royal Albert Hall.  One is State House, the other is Freedom House.  The house of the opposition is still trying to figure out its address.  Who is responsible for the death of Adriana Younge?  Surprisingly, there is national consensus: she didn’t die by her own hand.  She didn’t wander off and kidnap herself, then lose herself, then resurfaced, and then committed suicide.  Astonishing on the single matter that Guyanese find almost universal agreement.  Check what it is, fellow citizens, strangers, foreigners, partners: national agreement on a tragedy surrounded by mystery, haunted by nonexistent integrity.  National consensus despite doubts over efficiency, with political trustees scorned.  Young Adriana did not die of natural causes, or by her own orchestration.

This leaves getting to the bottom of what were all those fires and social incendiaries about.  The old passions and prejudices (judgements an sentences) return with a vengeance, and the litany of troubles resume their energized expressions.  Others may find comfort in energized explosions.  Guyana was in a bad place, but with one saving grace: it was ancient, mostly underground.  Since Adriana, Guyana is in a worst place, and it is all on the table, with an enthralled world doing their own autopsies.  I preempt others by getting a jumpstart with my own one.  Let there be some serious focus here.

Adriana Younge was discovered dead, and the pyres flamed into life in many parts of Guyana.  Not for her funeral.  But for a nation in disarray, living on a volcano of distrust.  What was dormant, became active.  Overnight.

Was it a PPP Government-sponsored riot?  People recoil in horror.  I am either a UFO, or have three heads.  The mirror is the same, and so is ID Card, and mind.  Was it a PNC coordinated calamity, one operated by remote control?  “Ezee storee good fuh dunce.”  I was never one.  Was it about presidential and police and pathologists’ shortfalls?  The jury has been out long, which means there’s some measuring.  When the president presides over a leaky, creaky, and sneaky boat, this is what results; when Excellency Ali gets cranky, matters get more shadowy.  When the police take nine days to release an autopsy report on the highest profile public issue, then that says something, tells its own tricky story in an already tawdry situation.  Incomplete, it is.  But it is no more complete and no more persuasive on day nine, as it would have been on day one (or two, three, at the latest).  What’s going on?  What kind of fool do you think I am, Mr. Police?  Mr. Minister, Mr. President?  Those are not hit songs; they are symphonies that savage Guyana’s soul.  Better sense should have ruled the day.  Because when there is nothing to hide, there is absolutely no worth in empowering citizens to believe that there is.  Jesus Christ! When will some people in this country learn?

The problem, the culture, the religion, is that having devoted all braincells, all energy, and all visions to walk a slippery road, then that’s the road automatically chosen.  I rest.  Oh, I almost forgot that all-purpose, always-at-attention, beast: criminal elements.  They are the first whipping boys.  Guyanese know of mindless mobs.  This one had a well-tuned mind.  Ask the Chinese.  It was Guyana’s one night of horror.  Guyana’s Kristallnacht with what was tantamount to a Chinese pogrom.  Danger, damage, and detritus have their language, a much more searing vocabulary than I can muster.  I continue with this heavy-hearted autopsy of mine.

Was Monday, April 28 a social explosion against economic repression and political oppression?  The overpowering heat of many fires, plus the related criminal baggage, plus the outpouring of violent energy, were all there.  So were some of the usual known characters -another set of ready parties – racial culprits.  Individual and institutional.  Incidentally, the government and country are still stuck at autopsy.  I recommend an autopsy of the living, starting at the top.  Concentrate on the skull, because the most comprehensive body of evidence is stored right there.

Young Adriana is dead for a long time now, for sure.  The odds are that she will scorch conscience, and handcuff memory, for much longer.

(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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