Well, there you have it…no beating around the bush about what’s going on in Guyana from the PNC camp!! Prime Minister Brigadier (rtd) Mark Phillips told it like it is!! Maybe it’s part of their training?? After all, when giving orders in the army, you can’t afford any ambiguity, can you?? No Siree Bob!! Remember General Colin Powell against Saddam Hussain’s army in Desert Storm?? “Our strategy in going after this army is very simple. First, we are going to cut it off, and then we are going to kill it.” Short and (no so) sweet!!
Well, PM Phillips has taken on the PNC and their attacks against him as an “Uncle Tom” and a “house slave”. Both expressions take aim at his identity as an African Guyanese, and view his being part of the PPP Government as betraying “his people”. This, of course, betrays a mindset that views Guyanese as incapable of looking beyond their ethnic identities and act with Guyanese of other ethnicities for the national good!!
By this yardstick – for the PNC to be consistent – it’s clear they see Ramjattan, for example, as a “neemakharam”, which is the Indian Guyanese equivalent of a “house slave”. Imagine how they must snicker whenever Ramjattan denounces sugar workers!! Anyhow, responding to the stance and actions of the PNC, to claim there’s an “emerging apartheid state” — after they were forced to hand over power when their rigging attempt was exposed — the PM declared: “The APNU+AFC cabal and affiliated groups continue with desperate attempts at race-baiting, which they hope will incite civil unrest against the democratically elected People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) Government and end the tremendous benefits being experienced by all Guyanese”!!! The APNU+AFC cabal is inciting civil unrest against the PPP!! Can’t get clearer than that, can you?? PM Phillips has concluded – and we know he’s been trained to analyse security threats against the Guyanese state – that the PNC ain’t interested in electoral politics to achieve office. Nah…that’s too uncertain.
Like their Founder-Leader Burnham, they’ve concluded they gotta take a shortcut to power. They tried the rigging thingy…but discovered “dis time na lang time”!! The Yanks and Brits don’t have that old-time ideological challenge no mo’!! So, what’s left?? Gotta be a direct assault against the state under the cover of “civil unrest”!! Remember the old aphorism?? “When you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
In the words of the retired Brigadier, “The APNU+AFC is on a treacherous road that they hope will create civil unrest and allow for the breakdown of democracy in Guyana, which happened under the PNC in the 70s and 80s.”
We wouldn’t want that, would we??
…against “alternative facts”
But PM Phillips didn’t just call out the PNC for their nefarious agenda, he exposed their “race baiting” dog whistling!! Every day – 24/7 – all the PNC does is scream that the PPP Government’s discriminating against African Guyanese!! COVID vaccines? Discrimination!! Even when they pushed the anti-vaxxer agenda!! The 8% Public Servants’ salary increase?? Discrimination!! As against who? Cane cutters?? They ain’t get anything!! But sadly, the PPP Government doesn’t release the ethnic breakdown of their direct assistance – because they don’t like to mention “race”.
But the PM knows better!! He disaggregated the most significant transfer of intergenerational wealth in the life of the average citizen – housing!! He revealed that his Government has “issued over 11,000 house lots and low-income houses. The beneficiaries are “over 50 per cent Afro-Guyanese”!! Imagine that!! Combined with the sling of cement, the steel rods and the low-income mortgages from the NBS, in two years, the PPP would’ve helped more African Guyanese in home ownership that the PNC did in their 33 years!!
…from the young tiger??
Your Eyewitness has commended Shivnarine Chanderpaul for his lifetime achievement – recently recognised by the ICC in Australia. His son Tage just hit 119 runs for the WI against the Aussie PM XI!!
Good luck, kid!!
