…in the making?
Once again, your Eyewitness reminds all of you, dear readers, of how you scoffed when, from the very onset of the Mingo rig-marole at Ashmins, he insisted the PNC has bared their fangs. They weren’t going to listen to anybody: not the courts, not powerful countries, not regional blocks. Granger had made up his mind to rig these elections from the moment he entered office, and nothing was going to stop him. He’d signalled his intention when he hand-picked James Patterson to be Chair of GECOM. Heck, that was in Oct 2017.
Reverse the tape to May 2015, when he hived off the Departments of Immigration and Registration from Ramjattan’s Home Affairs Ministry and passed them on to Winston Felix as “Ministry of Citizenship”. He was going to follow his idol Burnham’s footsteps to the “T” and fiddle with the birth certificates and registration records to give himself a built-in majority. Just as Burnham did in 1968 with the UF, Granger figured he didn’t need the AFC anymore – and stiffed Nagamootoo personally and the Berbice sugar workers collectively!
Whatever he’d planned however, certainly went awry on the night of March 3rd, when the numbers from the outlying 9 Regions came in and showed his PNC was losing big time. Mingo had to do his thing in front of the entire diplomatic corps and the observers. There was no turning back now!! In for a penny…in for a pound!! Or, as Burnham would put it: “Back to back, belly to belly. Ah doan give a damn, ah done dead a’ready!!”
And that’s why Granger has cussed out every friend and ally since then – CariCom, the US, UK, EU, OAS, etc. You name the friend and they’ve been cussed – stinking! So, what’s ahead?? Well, we just have to follow the logic of the situation. The only folks in Guyana who could stop Granger and his band of power-grabbers are his supporters. if the latter were to come out against the former, they’d have to fold up their tents and surrender.
The troops that Granger’s ultimately depending on won’t oppose the power-grabbers. Hadn’t Ogunseye, in 2011, insisted that “the army would not put down an uprising by their kith and kin”, when he called out PNC supporters into the streets against elections in which they’d lost??
And we’ve come a full circle, haven’t we?? The PNC have gone out to rally their supporters – even violating their COVID regulations – to come out against the expected Appellate Court’s decision. When they stream out into the streets, that’ll be the PNC’s excuse to call out the troops.
With the COVID regulations and the troops patrolling in full battle gear, what else would that be but a coup d’etat??
…the reaction
So, what then?? Granger’s clearly of the opinion that the US are either a paper tiger, or they wouldn’t intervene in a backwater like Guyana. The former because they’ve opposed Maduro in Venezuela for democratic breaches, expropriation of US assets, drug smuggling etc. but he’s still standing.
Well, Granger’s wrong on both counts. Firstly, he doesn’t have the military firepower or Russian allies like Venezuela does; and secondly, Guyana ain’t no backwater no more with all that oil off our shores. And Exxon as the major extractor.
Now, several designated situations can give the US the right to use force in other states – such as they did when they landed 20,000+ troops in Panama in Dec 1989. They pointed out that they were restoring democracy, and that US citizens were at risk (anticipatory self-defence).
After they ousted Noriega – and kept him in jail until he died in 2017 – they installed Endara in office. He’d won the elections earlier in the year, but was prevented from taking office.
Sounds familiar??
…and the Guyanese people
If the racial polarisation which the PNC has deepened into a gaping canyon since Dec 21, 2018 wasn’t enough to destroy any hope of reconciliation in our country, a coup d’etat certainly would.
The choice is up to the PNC’s supporters.
