…with race-baiting Declaration of Sophia
The Japanese say ‘a cornered rat will bite the cat’, and they certainly know what they are talking about! Now that the PNC and the AFC have been cornered by the results of the LGE, and they have nowhere to run — with a 2020 defeat staring them in the face — they’re willing to bring down the rest of Guyana with them.
Over in Sophia, where their traditional constituents had passively/aggressively refused to turn out to vote for them, and they’d lost, Mayor Chase Green turned up with a barrage of helpers to clean up the place!! She obviously didn’t realise this only teed off the denizens, who sarcastically inquired as to why they had to live with their garbage since 2015!! But it was at nightfall that the gloves were pulled off and the claws were bared, and the new Sophia Declaration made.
One Minister from the Ministry of the Presidency, Dawn Hastings, referred to present day criticism of her PNC-led coalition Government’s miserable record on crime and gratuitously screamed, “Comrades, we are not losing our sons. Up to today, many mothers do not have closure for their children. Over 400 young people, young men, were killed under the PPP Government!!” In the poor urban communities from which much of the lumpen element originate, the “400 young men killed” has become the trope for alleging PPP “racial excesses” against “young black men” during what David Granger called the “troubles”, from 1998 to 2008. It was a transparent and nasty appeal to race, since there’s no connection to present day crime and the old killing fields.
This is dangerous and provocative. First of all, when the arbitrary list is disaggregated, it omits the names of dozens of Policemen and innocent individuals from other communities – especially Indian Guyanese who were murdered by the “Freedom Fighters” operating out of Buxton. Hastings’ slanted-language reference to the Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek massacres makes it appear that these were the work of PPP operatives, rather than that of the aforementioned Buxton Gang! Ironically, the gang had declared on TV they’d launched a war against the state, run by the PPP Government!! But they proved to be terrorists when they turned their guns against innocent civilians.
The silencing of the murders and mayhem against other communities is certain to provoke a counter-reaction that’ll widen and exacerbate our divisions. While Phantom Squads were formed in reaction and took vigilante justice, the PNC-led coalition Government has threatened a full investigation into the killings of that era.
Bharrat Jagdeo, the Opposition Leader, had supported that CoI. We now see why the matter hasn’t been settled this way.
The PNC wants to keep it as their “race card” to survive 2020.
…with SOCU
The PNC are so predictable. Once they realised their goose was cooked after the LGE, in addition to their old standby, the race card, your Eyewitness predicted they will play their SOCU card. In the interest of full disclosure, he has to admit this prediction was a no-brainer! After all, following every revelation of corruption among their ranks – and these have been coming fast and furious! – they’d announce an imminent SOCU “criminal case” against one PPP official or another!! This time Irfaan Ali!
…after Jonestown
The Jonestown Mass Suicides’ 40th anniversary nudged the memory of some PNC “old heads”. They recollected how the Army and Police looted the bodies of the dead – and even fought over the spoils!
The Fly Jamaica outrage has a long heritage!
