…at noon in Guyana
Over the years after the PNC returned to power in 2015 – under the cover provided by the AFC and a handful of one-man parties – your Eyewitness referred several times to the theme of “Darkness at Noon”. It’s the title Arthur Koestler gave to his allegorical novel that described the imposition of the brutal Stalin’s dictatorship over Russia. It alludes to the darkening of the skies when Christ was crucified at midday; something precious was being sacrificed. Today, once again, similar darkness has descended over Guyana, with our inalienable right to choose our government being sacrificed on the altar of Granger and the PNC’s insatiable greed for pelf and power.
A year and a half ago, your Eyewitness had written: “After months of clear sunshine in Guyana, there were prophetic dark clouds over Georgetown last Thursday when two Justices of the Appellate Court affirmed Granger’s unilateral appointment of James Patterson as GECOM Chairman.” We knew then the local Judiciary was going to bend to the PNC storm. Some months later, readers were reminded of what’s ahead if they didn’t stand up to the PNC juggernaut:
“Darkness at Noon” could very well be a portrayal of the nightmare politics of those times under the totalitarian megalomaniac, Burnham. Yes, it was a “dark time, my dear reader”! There was the darkness of the rampant, violent, kick-down-the-door robberies when the homes of Guyanese were violated and their innocent occupants brutally beaten to hand over whatever valuables were left after the Burnhamite state’s depredations.
“There was the darkness of the indignity of standing in “Guy-lines” for hours to BUY an ounce of butter, and the humiliation of dreaming about the taste of bread. And not least of all, there was the darkness of having your ballots dumped into canals and replaced by new ones filled in by the “Security Forces”. Whose security?? Yes, my friends, life became “nasty, brutish and short”, under the Burnhamite PNC.”
But here in Guyana today, Dear Reader, Granger and his PNC miscreants didn’t even bother there wasn’t even a cloud in the skies: they did their rigging in Georgetown bathed in bright sunshine. They didn’t even bother that the ABCE diplomats walked out of the farcical “presentation” of the SoPs in that bright sunshine. If in 1980, the British Observer Group said the elections were “more crooked than barbed wire”, how would they describe this one?? The PNC didn’t even offer a fig leaf to have them wriggle out from the obvious “condemnation”.
But sadly, we should remember that in the international arena, there aren’t any permanent friends, or permanent “principles”.
Just permanent interests. And once those interests aren’t threatened…
…and nastiness to the press
And if the international observers, the diplomatic corps, the International nation-blocks of the OAS, Commonwealth, and Caricom weren’t enough to satisfy the PNC’s penchant for venting their spleen, yesterday they turned on the press. This morning, the reports from the latter were a thing to behold! Most had insisted they were “value-free observers” and went out of their way to take the PNC and their shenanigans with the SoPs at face value. Your Eyewitness used to wonder whether they were just naïve or they supporters of the Government.
A few were definitely in the latter group – they didn’t bother to disguise their preferences. But the majority tried to dance between the raindrops of the PNC’s vicious and nasty rigging stratagems. Well you ought to hear then now!! Some are affronted that they were attacked by PNC supporters and prevented from covering the counting because of their…erm…ethnicity!! This, it seemed was the lowest blow! After all, hadn’t they denied ethnicity even existed and insisted they were “Guyanese”??
Ah…the agony of an illusion shattered!!
…and light
Guyanese know the PNC’s refusing to show their SoPs ‘cause they’re hiding something. They should do the logical thing and accept the SoPs of the PPP that have been un-contradicted in the public domain for over a week.
