…on the Big Jail
Back in 1981, when Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan had just taken over the Governments of Britain and the US, the short-lived band, “Fun Boy Three”, came out with a hit single, “The lunatics have taken over the asylum”. The phrase, of course, means those in charge are the most incompetent and unqualified – and was around long before them.
One verse goes, “No nuclear!” the cowboy told us/ and who am I to disagree / ‘cause when the madman flips the switch/ the nuclear will go for me.” The “cowboy”, in case you forgot, was Ronald Reagan, and the next year, he invaded Grenada. The neo-liberalism he and Thatcher launched have been more devastating than any nuclear bomb. The financial meltdown of 2008 is their legacy.
But here in Guyana, we’re also seeing the expression come alive – literally and figuratively. Over at the Camp Street Prison, while the authorities are doggedly sticking to the line that the inmates have taken over the prison ain’t true, reports are too credible to be ignored. So we have a situation where 900 criminal and remand prisoners – armed with homemade knives and other makeshift weapons – are in charge of a prison in the middle of the city.
Back in 2002, five of these guys broke out – and we all know what went then. Imagine if a dozen of them do a repeat performance. The Government has announced what’s really going on is a “sick-out” by prison wardens. Well…that’s one way to explain why most of the wardens haven’t shown up for work to the prison! The other, of course, is that guarding armed prisoners with violent records while they have free reign of the facilities, is a bit over their pay grade!
The Government has thrown up a cordon of TSU units around the prison – but significantly – NOT inside. And this is where we now get to the figurative aspect that the lunatics are now running the asylum. Where’s National Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan, in all of this? Isn’t he the face of the Government’s crime fighting resolve and readiness? And that’s precisely the nub of the mess we’re in – of which the prison is only the top of the iceberg.
The Alliance For Change (AFC) coalesced with the People’s National Congress (PNC) – let’s cut to the chase, will we? – and demanded key ministries. But in each of them they’ve failed abysmally – either because of their own ineptitude (like Ramjattan and Holder) or emasculation (like Nagamootoo and governance).
Will someone not minister to these bumbling and inept “Ministers”? Or better yet…rid us of them?
…of the WPA?
The WPA just sent out a release on the Report of the Rodney Commission. It’s one of the most schizophrenic documents your Eyewitness’ read in a long, long time. It opened with this beauty: “The only victory we think the entire country may posture (sic) now is…the imminent official release to the public of the Report.” It’s “posturing” all right!! Did the President tell its coalition partner this? So Pat Rodney may finally see it?
The release warned: “We will have to consider too that the Commission barely survived a persistent effort to abort the hearings…”. Yet didn’t explicitly say it was their coalition partner PNC that attempted the “abortion”.
And then gave this free pass to the same PNC “For a new administration that could bear no responsibility for the state terror of that period…the inquiry fortifies the moral base for intensified investigations and/or another inquiry.”
So could the Working People’s Alliance (WPA) tell us how the present Administration – with several operatives from when the PNC murdered Rodney – “could bear no responsibility”?
…of governance?
When in Opposition, the APNU and the AFC both made quite a racket about “governance” – usually concatenated with the word “good”. Like in “The [People’s Progressive Party] PPP lacks good governance, which we will practice when we get in.”
So is Nagamootoo responsible for the mess the Government’s presently in?
