Bobbing… and weaving

Your Eyewitness has the unenviable task of informing you, Dear Readers, The Government has RESCINDED that $100,000 cash grant they said would be handed out to every adult Guyanese citizen. It wasn’t the new phenomenon of old fogies hunching over their phones all over the place – for which they’d trenchantly criticised their young’uns for not having a life – trying to get onto the portal that would deliver the cash!! It was the frustration that drove hundreds of thousands of them to try to log in, to scream so loudly that Suriname thought we’d declared war on them – and newly acquired US missiles were hurling their way to obliterate them!! Well, your Eyewitness just has to wish y’all a “MERRY APRIL FOOLS’ DAY!!” and say that everything above is true – save the cash grant disbursal part!! The screaming’s still on!!
Anyhow, what’s really going on apart from the flights being all full with family from abroad returning to collect their cash grants – and seeking room and board from screaming locals?!! Well, your Eyewitness was surprised to see the US ambassador announcing – in public for all and sundry to hear – that there’s nothing “political” about her country wanting to have Sanction Man face that appointment with their justice system in Miami!! Ambassadors are diplomats, innit?? And so they’re supposed to be diplomatic, no?? Well, for this one to be so blunt, you gotta figure they’re getting more than a tad testy with all the delaying tactics Sanction Man’s deploying against them! Yep!! Against “THEM”!! Notice the good lady pointed out that it wasn’t Guyana that indicted Sanction Man and his Daady – it was THEM!!
Sanction Man should remember what happened the last time another Guyanese – who’s very well-known to him – didn’t want to also face the music for breaking American laws on American soil!! The just dearly departed ex-president of Suriname, Santokhi – who was then Minister of Justice – had to work with the Yanks to lure the fella to that country and ship him stateside on a jet plane!! Or could it be the ten years that short, cherubic-faced fella like him had to face in the general population – in an attractive jumpsuit – have baulked him??!!
Anyhow, seeing Sanction Man’s sissie in New York sporting at a Phagwah Festival there had your Eyewitness scratching his head. Aren’t these Hindu festivals celebrated according to meticulously calculated timings based on the positions of the earth, sun and moon?? Your Eyewitness remembers various learned Pandits vigorously debating these points in the press on the timing of one of their festivals?? It never came to blows – but ALMOST!!
He’s heard about “moving heaven and earth” to do something – but jeez! A whole festival??

…on reparations
Your Eyewitness noticed that the well-ventilated subject of reparations for African slavery has been placed on the agenda of the UNGA. Ghana moved a motion to have it declared a “crime against humanity” – and only the US, Israel and Argentina voted against it. But it’s critical to note that some 58 countries – including the known suspects that perpetuated the claimed “crime against humanity” – notably Britain, France, Germany, Portugal, etc., abstained!!
In reality, they’re really voting against it!! They want to have their cake – to appear virtuous by not actually voting for it – but eat it too, by denying reparations for the descendants of the victims. But the proponents of reparations are also shooting themselves in the foot for any number of reasons. Right off the bat, the sponsor of the motion – Ghana – some years ago apologised for their role in slavery!! They accepted several tribes, like the Ashanti, raided other tribes and sold them to the Europeans.
Shouldn’t they pay reparations also??

…double taxation
The US ambassador also raised the issue of working on an agreement so that US firms working here shouldn’t be “doubly taxed”. Fair enough… The accepted rule is the companies oughta be taxed where the income’s been generated!!
So, Exxon’s gonna now pay taxes??