Justice… for Henry boys

Well, almost six years after the gruesome murders of the two Henry cousins – Isaiah, 16, and Joel, 19 – in W Berbice, justice was served when a jury of 12 pronounced two marijuana cultivators – Anil Sanchara, 39, and Vinod Gopaul, 35 – who’d been charged guilty!! With the murders committed just a month after the General Elections that ousted the Granger PNC Government – he and his lieutenant, Joseph Harmon, rushed to W Berbice to cynically muddy the waters to remain in office!! Harmon declared the murders were “political” and the PPP must be removed forthwith!! Unrest along the Public Road segued into riots as enraged “protestors” robbed, beat, destroyed cars, burnt paddy trucks and created general mayhem against Indian-Guyanese!!
The country remained on edge for months as PNC elements kept up drumbeats of a racial/political nexus with the murders. At the funeral service – which was more like a political rally than anything else – the conclusion by Vincent Alexander summarised the mood: with absolutely no evidence, he declared, “The murders were a hate crime!” One 18-year-old youth – Haresh Singh – on whose family land the boys were found and who had been arrested and released – was then brutally murdered. Their relatives and all of Guyana prayed that these cases be solved ASAP – if for nothing else than bringing closure to the bereaved families.
The Guyana Police – assisted by the CARICOM RSS – conducted an investigation of the crime scene and determined that the murders of the Henry boys – whose bodies were brutally hacked and Xs carved into their heads – weren’t committed where the bodies were found. One of the most perplexing interventions was by the GHRA – emerging from its hibernation – demanding that a team of Argentinian anthropological forensic scientists be flown in to investigate!! Since that team focused on IDENTIFYING randomly discovered murdered bodies and the three murdered youths were known, there was much head-scratching as to what exactly they could do!!
The Police finally arrested three men – the above-mentioned two who were convicted and another named Akash – who turned state witness because he was there when the murders were committed and provided the smoking cutlasses, so to speak! It turns out there was never a political nexus, and the convicted men had been running a marijuana farm which was evidently destroyed by the Henry cousins. They ran into each other in the backdam, and after an altercation, the murders were committed!! They also arrested some locals for Haresh’s murder – one of whom confessed. It was a revenge killing!!
Now that justice has been done, your Eyewitness is waiting for those opposition worthies who pronounced on the political nexus to apologise for causing the deaths and destruction!!

…for humanity
As concerns rise over the impact of AI on employment of humans in the coming years – Meta has already sacked thousands – early assumptions that it’ll all lead to more leisure time for humans are being questioned!! Because it ain’t only layoffs – there are entry-level jobs for coders, editors, legal researchers and every job that involves ploughing through data!! There’s no need for all that training – and as such, it creates redundancy in colleges!!
We went through something similar back with the invention of the steam engine – which led to factories replacing every kind of employment that had a human physical input!! Like farming or weaving or transportation that literally used “horse” power!! But this time around there’s a huge difference!! The financing for the data centres that are necessary to support AI runs in the billions – and as such will immeasurably widen the wealth gap that’s already out of whack!!
Will there be a call for “Humans of the world, unite” – against AI??!!

…against garbage
Guyana should adopt an initiative just launched in Tokyo with the theme “If you throw trash, you lose cash.” They’ve hired officers who monitor the streets constantly and have been empowered to demand payment for the fines – on the spot!!