… Nagamootoo
Poor Nagamootoo. The man who Harmon described as “royalty” is so fighting for relevance, it’s pathetic. But what can you tell a guy who didn’t see the irony of Harmon giving him that “bouquet”, when it was Harmon who enjoyed all the powers of the enhanced Prime Ministership Granger had promised Nagamootoo!! He missed the snicker in Harmon’s voice!!
But did you notice that this week, Granger even yanked the only task Nagamootoo had – that “My Turn” Sunday column to butter up Granger in the Chronic? Doesn’t even get a “turn” now!! Except a turn of the screw after he reverted to his old Cold War mindset to cuss out the US and the West in a bitter denunciation!! The man sounded like Soviet Premier Khrushchev when the latter gave his talk at the UN and took off his shoe to bang on the podium to emphasise his point about the West’s imminent demise. “History will absolve me!” cried Khruschev, with his mouth foaming!!
Well, Nagamootoo was certainly foaming at the mouth when he accused the US of using Guyana and the elections rigging as a “pawn” in its bid to overthrow the Maduro Government over in Venezuela next door!! Well, looks like you can take the man from the commie gutter, but you can’t take the commie gutter out from the man!! But you know Nagamootoo couldn’t have just come up with this trenchant attack on the US out of the blue.
He’s not the kind of fella who’s very reflective – he just spews bits and pieces of whatever gyaaf he might’ve been part of and then takes credit for being profound!! So, one can imagine that as the criticisms and threats of the US and the West about their blatant rigging continued unabated, Granger and the APNU/AFC combine must’ve really railed at their “perfidy”!! Wasn’t it only yesterday they’d been ushered into office by the same lot?? Betrayal!! Their mistake was to have Nagamootoo in their midst – as all his erstwhile comrades from the PPP would’ve told them, the man just doesn’t know when to shut up!!
After this newspaper exposed Nagamootoo’s anti-US rant, Granger was livid and handed Nagamootoo a good whupping behind that woodshed at State House. This was no limp-wristed bitch slapping!! Hence no column in the Chronic this week, and the DPI’s “report” of some never-happened “interview” in which Granger gratuitously emphasised how close Guyana still remained to the US!!
But the coalition’s real thinking about the US and the West is now out in the open – and no amount of sucking up by Granger can get that particular genie back into the bottle.
The coalition’s days are numbered!!
…the old fraternity
The Caribbean used to be very insular – it was pretty much an old boys’ club for much of the post-independence period. Many of them – like Barrow and Burnham – had studied in London at the same time. Burnham was able to get away with his egregious rigging for two decades to a great extent because of those old connections.
Granger, who was at Burnham’s feet for the entire duration of his Caricom free pass, obviously thought he could also count on Caricom – for the same reasons – when he followed in his master’s footsteps on the rigging road. Why else would he big-up Caricom as the “most legitimate interlocutors in Guyanese affairs”??
But he’s just discovered that “dis time na laang time”!! It’s been a long time in coming, but the new Caricom leaders have realised that they have to act in accordance to international norms and they won’t be getting no free pass because of the old colonial guilt.
Granger and the PNC won’t be allowed to rig any longer!! It’s just not one anymore!
…the CCJ
The CCJ is a Caricom institution that Guyana accepted in its Appellate Jurisdiction – along with only Belize and Barbados from the 15 Caricom members. But it’s so new it skipped the “old boys’ network” bias.
Buying Francis Alexis changes nothing.
