Let’s…fight terrorism 

So little Soraya Bourne – only six years old and just starting school with the innocence of children who have no reason not to believe a long life lies ahead – has been interred. Through absolutely no fault of hers, her life was violently snuffed out by a terrorist who came across all the way from Venezuela to create mayhem and destruction in Guyana. She died just because someone or some organisation – perchance even the Government of Venezuela – wanted to “send a message” to our government. She was just collateral damage.
Your Eyewitness believes we shouldn’t allow innocent Soraya’s life to be lost in vain…not just to become a statistic that’s forgotten within the next news cycle. As your Eyewitness has pointed out, this act of terrorism at the mid-town gas station by a foreign operative out of Venezuela was not the first – there were the other two last May at the Ruimveldt Police outpost and the GPL Mandela Ave sub-station. And we can be sure that it ain’ gonna be the last. The terrorism genie that has transformed modern warfare by “non-state actors” – as they’re called – -has ravaged vast swathes of the world. It has reached us and will not return into its bottle on its own. How many more Sorayas will here be??
Terrorism’s entire modus operandi is to strike terror – hence the name – in the populace so that their governments will cave in to whatever agenda the terrorists are pursuing. In our case, Mad Maduro’s quaking in his boots as he sees his ouster or his death – or both – approaching in the form of the American armada massed in the Caribbean Sea. He wants to make us think twice and reject cooperating with the Yanks – even as he’s cold-bloodedly pursued the annexation of our Essequibo!!
We, therefore, need to have a dedicated counter-terrorism outfit formed – if one wasn’t already launched – to confront this existential threat!! While it might seem to be a bit of overkill in view of the National Intelligence & Security Agency (NISA) that was recently in the news – we can leapfrog dealing with this new and specialised threat. And we can honour this young life that was snatched so brutally by naming it the “Soraya Counter-Terrorism Unit” (SCTU). The British model of Regional Terrorism Units with a coordinating Central Headquarters suggests a structure. The latter coordinate activities with NISA.
To paraphrase Martin Carter’s “Death of a comrade”: “Too soon, too soon/ our banner draped for you./ I would prefer/the banner in the wind/ not bound so tightly in a scarlet fold –/ not sodden sodden/with your people’s tears/ but flashing on the pole/ we bear aloft/ down and beyond this dark dark lane of rage.”

…remind Mad Maduro
Are you, Dear Readers, old enough to remember the classic ballad “Where Have All The Flowers Gone?” This was covered by so many greats during the anti-war days of the 1960s. The question alludes to the horrors of war by answering that “young girls pick them” and they take them to the young men who’ve gone to become soldiers – and end up in graveyards. And the graveyards?? “Gone to flower, every one of them”!! The refrain asks poignantly, “When will they ever learn, oh when will they ever learn?”
The “they” of course, are those who start and keep stoking wars. And as we can see all around the world, there ain’t no shortage of “them”!! As we know to our cost, we’ve got Mad Maduro on our western border, who clearly hasn’t learned anything after one quarter of his people have fled to foreign climes – including Guyana.
Yet he’s provoking war with his act of terrorism that killed Soraya!!

…cooperate
The US Commander of SouthCom – who is in charge of all military operations in our neck of the woods –  was in town last week.  He certainly didn’t come for a rum swizzle!! So your Eyewitness wonders whether Mad Maduro had his buckta in a knot again!!