Guyana’s decline in decency and rule of law started just after independence

Mar 26, 2026 Letters

Dear Mr. Editor,

Please allow me to respond to your Sunday headline on 13^th March, 2026: the new strategy to address high rate of lawlessness in this country. When I saw the article, I remembered in 1993 I casually spoke to president Jagan at Everest Cricket Ground.

I mentioned to him that due to the lawlessness in this country, people are leaving and even, if their parents would like to come back, from America, Canada, or England, their children would be an immigrant and they will be foreigners to Guyana.

Editor, I did not discuss this with Jagan in 1993 but I am much older and wiser now and I see the state of lawlessness in Guyana at every level. The lawlessness started in 1966 when Guyana became independent. Guyana had the brightest minds, the best dressed people, best dancers, the best trades men in the West Indies. It brought me back to a story which was told to me by a respected gentleman, who is now a doctor.

In 1950, he and three other boys from Trinidad and Tobago attended the Royal Queens’ College of Trinidad, they were heading to Oxford University in England; one of the best in the world in those days; even today.

They were very proud and arrogant; all they talked about is what they would become when they came back to Trinidad & Tobago. One of the professors, who was at the dinner, with them called them aside and advised them, “Boys you going Oxford, you bright”. They replied, “Yes, we bright. And that is why we are going to Oxford”.

The professor replied saying, “Go on my boys, I wish you well, but when you reach Oxford, look out for them boys from BG (British Guiana)”. They laughed and responded to the professor saying “We aren’t scared of nobody from BG, we gonna destroy them and the rest of the world.”

But when they arrived at Oxford, within one month, they realised they were bright Trinidadian boys. But the boys from BG were brilliant. And they were no match for them. I will shift a little: if in 1966 a boy was allowed his cow to graze on the road and no one stopped him, in 1980, his son will graze his cow and donkey on the road, and no one stopped him by 1985, the first boy grandson will graze his cow, donkey and horse on the road.

By 2026, if someone said to the boy, “You cannot graze your animal on the road” he would be told, “Uncle you stupid, where you want me to graze the animal?”

Our decline in decency and rule of law started just after independence and gradually kept up like compound interest as the years went by.

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