It’s said that the past is never dead…it’s not even past!! And this was proven a couple of days ago with the 50th commemoration of the murders of the Ballot Box Martyrs back on July 18, 1973. Some Golden Jubilee!! But necessary since, only three years ago, there could’ve been even more persons killed when the PNC again tried to rig the General Elections. If it weren’t for the presence of the ABCE Ambassadors, more extreme measures would’ve certainly been taken than the spreadsheets and soiled bedsheets deployed to fudge the count!! The Police Commander at the Reg 4 GECOM Centre had already been ordered to stand down!!
In 1968 – as was shown by a British Granada documentary – the elections were rigged through “cocking” the overseas votes. Even British horses voted!! In 1973, the very creative Burnham tried something new. They decided to have the votes of the entire country counted at Army HQ at Camp Ayanganna in GT. Getting wind of this, unarmed PPP party agents at No 63 Village insisted on accompanying the ballot boxes when the army descended to pick them up. Two were shot and killed – Bholanath and Jagan.
David Granger – then a Major – wrote the army and PNC’s take of the matter in his book “New Road”. He gloated that the “soldiers had performed SPLENDIDLY in the face of provocation”!! Imagine that!! He used the standard – the soldiers were just following orders – to justify the army’s action – but never asked WHY orders to take the ballot boxes to Camp Ayanganna were issued in the first place!! But then, that’s why Burnham had formed an army in his own image – after firing the man the British had picked – Major Sattaur.
Armed forces operate on the principle of “unity of command” within a rigid hierarchy. Meaning, when the fella above you yells, “Jump!!”, the most you dare ask is “How high?”!! This orientation has been ground into the army types like Granger for decades, and has become second nature. But, in Guyana, this anti-democratic reflex has been augmented by the perspective of the man who “moulded” our Disciplined Forces after he became leader in 1964 – Forbes Burnham.
Burnham didn’t beat around the bush…he declared openly – recorded in the GDF’s magazine, Purple Beret – that he didn’t expect any “abstract loyalty” from the army, but a personal one wherein they swore fealty to him at PNC Congresses!! So, when those soldiers killed the Ballot Box Martyrs, they did so because they were indoctrinated with the principle of PNC uber alles – including Guyana!! It doesn’t get more anti-democratic than that, does it?
And guess who was in charge of inculcating this anti-democratic perspective to the army? Yep – David Granger!! The past is present!!
…it’s a multipolar world
Even as the tensions ratchet up between Russia and the US over in the Ukraine theatre in a Hot War…and a new Cold War gets more and more brittle between China and the US, we can’t ignore the tensions between India and China!! Especially now we’re getting our 15 minutes of fame because of EXXON finding 11 billion barrels of sweet crude oil off our shores!! The point is, this world’s a whole new one – a developing multipolar world emerging out of the unipolar world after the USSR imploded in 1989!!!
China and India have been going at each other ever since they fought a short border war in 1962. It’s been on and off, with the latest “off” in 2020 when over 20 Indian soldiers and four Chinese soldiers were killed in hand-to-hand fighting during a border clash that forced both sides to fortify positions and deploy large numbers of troops and equipment. So wha’d we do??
There’s no neutrality with minnows like us.
…the price of “potential”
CGX are the pioneers to explore for oil beneath the Atlantic. So why aren’t they rolling in dough?? The US$1.5M daily rental for rigs their Chairman mentioned gives a hint!! Potential ain’t worth squat without capital!!
