Dear Editor,
The list of recipients of the national awards, which was announced on the eve of Independence Day, has raised many questions in my mind as to the rationale for bestowing national honours on these persons. Even though I have no doubt that some of it was to give back to old party loyalists, many of them do not deserve such national honours due to the great harm they have inflicted on Guyana.
For now, let us examine the three top awardees and try to see what they did to deserve such high honours.
i) Fraundel Stewart, Prime Minister of Barbados: It was that party led by Stewart that demonised Guyanese in Barbados. He and his party won the elections in Barbados by making Guyanese living there the scapegoats for their social and economic problems that that country faced.
The humiliation of our citizens in his country was mainly due to his party’s campaign against Guyanese, who are still forced to run and hide when they see a certain minibus owned by the immigration authorities approaching.
The Barbadian leader that defended Guyanese during that horrific period (and now) is Owen Arthur, former Prime Minister, thus, if there was any Barbadian more deserving of such an award, it was Arthur, and not Stewart.
ii) Rex Mckay: This gentleman played a major role in defending the undemocratic PNC regime throughout its rule of our country. That man stood as the main legal representative of PNC regime, as it used the courts to persecute opposition members and supporters.
It was he who was the special prosecutor in the three trials of Arnold Rampersaud who was placed before the courts on a trumped up murder charge.
Mckay was also again the special prosecutor in the case against the three young PPP members who were charged for treason.
Again, it was Rex McKay who took up the cudgels for Burnham against Walter Rodney who was charged for the fire that destroyed the Ministry of National Mobilisation and Office of the General Secretary of the PNC.
Is he now being honoured for his services rendered in defending a political dictatorship, which in the process destroyed Guyana’s economy and its standing in the region and the world? He helped to sustain the PNC dictatorship that destroyed our country.
iii) Dr Bartland Scotland, Speaker of the National Assembly: Scotland, during his one year as Speaker has done a great deal to subvert the National Assembly from fulfilling its role as a deliberative body.
He has agreed to put Bishop Edghill before the Privileges Committee for asking how much money the increase in salaries and allowances will cost the taxpayers of this country over the next five years. Only recently, he rejected questions that Anil Nandlall had sent in relation to crime and the release of prisoners. These vindictive acts to silence the PPP/C speakers are old patterns of the regime.
Sincerely,
Gopaul Singh
