The latest affaire Charrandas has the nation agog – again! The first time, of course, was his historic, “yes…yes…yes” vote that tipped the scales in the PPP’s No Confidence Motion (NCM) to bring down the PNC/APNU coalition on Dec 21, 2018!! His rationale for voting against his Government went to the very heart of democratic representative governance – voting his conscience on an issue affecting his constituents!!
His party’s MPs and members, of course, thought differently!! From the vicious elbowing into his ribs from his parliamentary colleague to the plaintive “No, Charrandas, no, no, no…!!” FIFTY TIMES from the female PNC member from Bartica, disbelief and then anger roiled the Opposition benches!! The next day, the accusations were ratcheted up: “Judas!!” being the kindest one!! Judas’s “thirty pieces of silver” became “millions in raw gold” as Charrandas was spirited away to Canada in fear for his safety. To the PPP and their supporters, he was a hero who stood up for the cane workers of Berbice against the “spitefulness” of the PNC!!
By Feb, 2021, after the dust had settled and the PPP returned to office (Aug 2020), he was posted to New Delhi, India as Guyana’s ambassador to this key rising power. They’d long been a friendly power for reasons going far beyond the cultural linkages forged by more than half of the population being of Indian descent!! The posting was widely seen a reward for his 2018 stance in Parliament – even though the NCM became moot by the time the elections rolled around. Not much was heard from Charrandas since then – with most of the bilateral relations originating locally from the hyperactive local Indian Ambassador.
Well, from what we now know – via that infamous video clip that’s now viral – barely after six months – September of 2021 – Charrandas didn’t just “get into” but “threw himself into” hot water. Whatever any investigation might have concluded, as they say in law – res ipsa loquiter – “the thing speaks for itself”. In this case LITERALLY!! No amount of whitewashing can cover – much less excuse – the kind of language hurled at the female animal rights activist, who’s famous in Delhi for feeding stray dogs.
Stray dogs are a big challenge in New Delhi, which has about 260,000 of them roaming its streets. They can be a menace since, every day, there are at least a hundred dog bites reported. And ever so often, as in the first week of this month, a child is mauled to death by them. But the lady whom Charrandas verbally assaulted had gone to court a decade ago – and won the right to feed strays that were objected to.
Charrandas messed up, and should do some penance.
…to send troops to Haiti
Your Eyewitness has been railing in this space about the continuing descent of Haiti into ever lower levels of Dante’s Inferno. And Caricom’s callous refusal to do something tangible to assist. Well, now that the US has gotten the UN’s Security Council to approve sending in troops to bring some sort of order – here’s their opportunity. The US is waiting for countries to volunteer troops to the mission, but as of now, only the Bahamas has stepped up to the crease.
So, what’s wrong with Caricom’s responsibility to a member state? And even beyond that, hasn’t it been an article of faith in our post-slavery Caribbean that we owe a historical moral obligation to Haiti for being a beacon of liberty for us?? Was the talk about that debt when Haitians were being smuggled through Guyana just that?? Talk?? Well, it’s time to put up or forever hold our (sordid) peace.
Now is the time for Guyana to take a led in Caricom and volunteer troops to Haiti.
…to stop PNC rigging??
If Mingo disobeyed the clear order to SHOW to the observers the SOPs he was tallying– even reinforced by the Courts after his first transgression, would making other stipulations clearer stop PNC’s rigging compulsion??
