Over the last three days, your Eyewitness examined PNC’s Hamilton Green’s exhortation to the PNC faithful who’d gathered at the Burnham Foundation to commemorate the 101st birth anniversary of the Kabaka. Burnham’s acceptance of that sobriquet says a lot about him: the Kabaka was the king of the African kingdom of Bugunda. And Burnham intended to rule Guyana absolutely as the monarchies of old: his favourite colour was purple – the colour of the British Monarchy.
But the logic of absolute rule has its own logic: you can’t allow any individual or institution to challenge your power. So rigging elections or unleashing violence on challengers had to be practised in an era that demanded “democratic” approbation by the “people”!! Now you’ll object that the aforementioned “people” would know their will was being stymied – but that was of no consequence to the Kabaka. He knew he had control inside the country and as far as outsiders were concerned, he knew they never read the small print when his headlines announced he’d been reselected again by a landslide!!
The logic demanded that the control be absolute if he wanted to sleep well at night. So we had the armed forces expanded by a thousand per cent and joined by all sorts of paramilitary bodies like the Guyana National Service and the National Guard Service. The Kabaka had to know whether rebellion was brewing within or without – so a ubiquitous spying apparatus had to be established where neighbour “carried news” on each other and comrades against each other – even as there were several “intelligence agencies” doing their thing.
As such, when for instance Rodney attempted to inspire a rebellion by recruiting members of the armed forces, Burnham knew about it even before some WPA leaders!! Rodney was then assassinated by someone from the GDF Burnham had planted – because he knew Rodney wanted someone knowledgeable in certain military skills!! Control of civil society was achieved by planting his supporters in the leadership of almost every civic organisation – including religious ones. Imagine he had one Hindu organisation he controlled – by paying the leaders out of Congress Place – insist he was an incarnation of one of their Deities!! He sidelined the old Christian denominations by favouring the new evangelicals that sprung up all over the place like Jumbie Umbrellas!!
Like Roman Kings, he revelled in bread and circuses!! The former was doled out in PNC-controlled Knowledge Sharing Institutes (KSIs) and the latter brought the masses out in Mass Games he introduced from North Korea!! And these barely scratch the surface of the terror and destruction inflicted on the people by Burnham.
Yet the PNC want to rehabilitate him as the exemplar of the kind of leadership Guyana needs!
…of Maduro’s madness
Mad people are convinced they’re sane and the rest of the world is mad!! Imagine Mad Maduro sending a message – when accepting Ambassador Van West Charles’ accreditation – that he had great respect and high regard for the President and the people of Guyana. This isn’t just eye-pass, but rass-pass!! Imagine this madman isn’t satisfied with destroying his country and chasing out a quarter of its population, but wants to inflict the same on us!!
And is telling us that he holds us in “high regard”? Frankly, as far as your Eyewitness is concerned, he can take his good wishes and stick it where the sun never shines!! The Guyanese people already suffered from the ministrations of one dictator, thank you – the above-mentioned Burnham – and have no wish to have another megalomaniac repeat the horror.
He should be told we shall fight in Essequibo, we shall fight in the jungles and savannahs, we shall fight on the beache. We shall never surrender.
…of the Qatari Hotel
The problem with the Opposition is they have no vision for the development of Guyana and are merely opposing for the sake of opposing – like with the Quatari Hotel. They’re repeating their rejection of their now beloved Marriott!!
