Lookin’…

…in all the wrong places
AFC’s Prime Ministerial candidate at the 2025 General election (whose party couldn’t even muster up a SINGLE SEAT!!) Laura George, criticised the Government for “not looking” beyond the colourful celebrations, traditional dances, and cultural showcases to confront the “deeper realities” facing Indigenous peoples. Fair enough – our Indigenous Peoples certainly shouldn’t be reduced to costumes, cassava bread, and a few speeches about heritage!!
But your Eyewitness wonders whether Laura George, who insists she’s an “Indigenous rights activist”, has been living under a rock?? Maybe one with those Timehri Rock carvings to give herself “authenticity”?? Of course, Indigenous communities have still got problems – nobody sensible is suggesting otherwise. Land rights, employment, education, healthcare, environmental protection, economic opportunity, and preservation of culture all deserve serious attention. But in each case the PPP Government – increasingly so after oil revenues started coming in – has made revolutionary improvements!!
We can do worse than start with land titling, which was mandated by the Brits at independence, but which the PNC dragged their feet as if they still had the ball and chains of slavery!! The PPP had now given title to almost every village that has applied where they can show their occupation “from time immemorial”.
Across the hinterland, Government programmes have been rolling out roads, bridges, schools, health facilities, housing, water systems, electricity projects (fuel, solar, and water-driven), agricultural support, community infrastructure, and all sorts of economic initiatives!! There’ve also been major investments aimed at bringing hinterland communities into the wider national economy rather than leaving them as picturesque dots on an Indigenous Peoples’ Day map!!
But there is something increasingly tiresome about the foreign-funded and controlled Indigenous activists like George portraying Amerindian people as if they’re permanently trapped in a documentary called “The Forgotten People of Guyana”. They aren’t to be reduced to a convenient source of lucrative grants, conference papers, consultancy fees, and NGO reports describing how desperately they need another NGO report!! Because if she’s somehow missed the massive development push the PPP Government has been taking into Amerindian communities, maybe somebody from the AFC who have survived their implosion should send a drone to locate her rock??
Of course, none of this means Indigenous communities have suddenly entered Manoa – Raleigh’s mythical City of Gold!! They’ve got legitimate concerns about all sorts of things they want – like every other citizen!! Development should always be questioned, and Governments should always be held accountable for whether the money actually produces lasting improvements.
George should take a little trip beyond the conference halls and take a hike to the Indigenous villages, and she’ll see the problem aint that our native peoples are moving forward very rapidly!!
Maybe she’s been looking under the wrong rock??

…back at medical care
With the explosion of hospitals across the country under the Irfaan Ali Administration, healthcare’s entering a brave new world. Your Eyewitness’ thinks it’s always a good thing to look backwards – not only to look at what preceded but perchance to learn from both opportunities seized or missed!! Our Georgetown “Big Hospital” was founded at the abolition of slavery – but not to look after the newly freed folks, but the British sailors who already had a military hospital from 1796!! “Seaman’s Ward” dates from 1838!!
There was also a hospital built in New Amsterdam in the 1880s – a beautiful wooden structure that was unfortunately allowed to fall into ruin! Our regional hospitals followed the Sugar Plantation hospitals – which were geared more to ensuring indentured labourers returned to the fields than healing them!!
Finally, private hospitals were pioneered when the Catholic Church in 1944 acquired a nursing home called “Colonna House” – run by an Italian doctor, Dr Romiti – and dubbed it St Joseph Mercy Hospital.

…at wokeness
Pressie mentioned he’s considering a local refinery – being at the mercy of expensive foreign supplies when we got our own crude. A woke yellow journalistic bird just denounced this as bad for the WORLD environment!!
While complaining about local inflation!!