One of Eric Williams’ famous statement when he launched the 30-year- long reign of the PNM in Trinidad back in 1956 was: “fighting in the streets is over and politics in Parliament will now begin”. Sadly, for us in Guyana, his contemporary Burnham, who’d escalated his “fighting in the streets” in Guyana to a literal racial civil war to get into power, never weaned his party to confine politics to the civilized rules of Parliament.
In fact, with them rigging elections from 1968 to 1985, by bringing in the army to seize ballot boxes and murdering civilians in the process, they expanded the arena of violence. Parliamentary democracy for the PNC was aways interpreted cynically – with a wink and a blow to the solar plexus of the other political players. Some killings by police “encounters” (Koama/Dublin) or with planted bombs in walkie-talkies (Rodney) or arbitrary torture after framed up charges (the De Willem 15) were examples of politics they practiced in power.
When they were ousted after 28 years, the PNC’s violent street politics returned without skipping a beat – and Guyana knew no lasting peace between from 1997 to now. Then there was hope they’d learnt a lesson – that violence can careen out of control and consume us all. They recalibrated, changed their name to APNU, went into a coalition with the AFC and returned to power. But it soon became clear they just couldn’t keep on the straight and narrow. The folk wisdom predicts that once canines start “sucking egg”, they just can’t stop!
And so after the PNC returned to their rigging ways in 2020, and when that was stymied, they extended their violence into the hallowed chambers of Parliament. They went where even Burnham never dared go!! Imagine seizing the Speaker’s Mace; fighting with the Sergeant at Arms over it and brukkin’ up the communications center!! Ever since Aug 2nd 2020 if it’s not the Courts, it’s the streets with their clenched fists and incendiary race-based rhetoric. We all know what happened at Mon Repos Market after the Opposition march from Golden Grove.
Right now the same set of provocateurs are busy stirring their cauldron of witches’ brew over social media to get their supporters into the streets to wreak havoc and mayhem. But we know what’s going on, don’t we? All of this simulated righteous indignation about “installed regimes” and “emerging apartheid states” is just playing to the PNC’s gallery to rile them up and precipitate the violence in the streets that’s been their trademark since the 1960’s.
Your Eyewitness hopes that the PNC’s constituency has learnt their lesson after sixty years of being used as cannon fodder.
And throw out the entire lot at the upcoming Biennial Congress!
…using our gas
So, the kvetching from the Opposition and their camp followers continues unabated on the gas-to-shore project. But hey, didn’t the VP lay out all the rationales on the need for cheaper electricity to kick-start our industrialization drive before proceeding? Your Eyewitness believes that these armchair “experts” have absolutely no idea of what’s going on with the community in Wales after the PNC shuttered the sugar factory. It’s devastation plain and simple!! If they did, maybe they’d echo the original weeping Prophet Jeremiah: “I will weep and wail for the mountains and take up a lament concerning the wilderness grasslands. They are desolate and untraveled, and the lowing of cattle is not heard. The birds have all fled and the animals are gone.”
The government appears committed to killing several birds with the big stone our natural gas generating power for the next thirty years. Those who want to save the planet should speak to the big emitters.
Our forests will cover our increased emission!
…and justice
Imagine opposition indignation over some persons fired – even though the govt took them to the courts ON SPECIFIC charges! Aren’t the Courts the arbiter of the laws – to decide whether the government violated any of those laws?
And justice will be served?
