Guyana President Ali is big on speeches. Regrettably, he is small to the point of invisibility in the results following those sweet speeches he delivers. It is part of his now standard presidential apparel: make a speech to soothe wrath, keep the people quiet, and then leave them forever hanging. One of President Ali’s pet speeches has to do with investigations. Due to developments involving ghastly crimes by citizens on other citizens, extrajudicial crimes by agents of the State mainly against young Black Guyanese, and Vice-Presidential corruptions, as alleged by the Chinese, the President has been frequently forced to dust-off his well-rehearsed speech about investigations. Any stranger hearing President Ali for the first time would conclude that he is President Law and Order, a leader dedicated to truth, justice, and so much more. If they only knew, if only they knew the ripeness behind these grand, comforting Presidential postures.
Speeches are just that speeches, and they ring hollow when all they do is hold things together for a moment, and then fade into the mists of nothing of substance happening. To give President Ali his suit of armor, he has made speeches about investigations required for Cotton Tree, and claims of bribery and corruption against the Vice President. We must have investigations, only he didn’t say what kind, and I know why. What Guyana’s President Ali desires fervently is for the investigations that he agrees to, is forced to surrender to, be done by his own people on the terms that they set, and with results assured to be all of a kind. When such is the case, it is as of the President himself is leading the investigation, with the outcome guaranteed to be one way.
It would be about the accidental, the conjectural, or that which lacked anything substantial. In other words, no harm, no foul; there was neither prejudice nor malice intended. To conclude, it is all innocence, other than that for the regular array of naysayers, agitators, troublemakers, and spoilers. If only this nation’s President could be believed. I make clear where I am: I am sorry that I do not have the luxury, nor the facility, to support the President on his pretenses about investigation of this or that, not when his own folks are endangered.
To make matters worse, it is noticeable that whenever the word ‘investigation’ takes centerstage in Guyana, those calling for it, always condition their push for such investigations with a nonnegotiable component. It is that any investigation must be INDEPENDENT. Not what the President says is independent, or may think passes tests of being independent, but what actually is, deep down independent, and thoroughly so. Naturally, this causes a problem, for it creates immediate bottlenecks, throws a 500 gallon ‘black tank’ into whatever President Ali had in mind.
Most unfortunately, and it is testimony to the state of affairs in Guyana that insistence for investigations and probes to be independent automatically rules out the Guyana Police Force. As seen by most Guyanese, including myself, the GPF is now too politicized and compromised to investigate anything, including a speeding truck running over a stray dog in the street. This is how far matters of law and trust have proceeded and deteriorated in today’s Guyana. But if that were all, it would not be so bad, because we would still have people considered honorable and principled enough to be deemed independent and, hence, trustworthy enough to conduct a credible investigation.
But we don’t have them. Not even in what passes for a local justice department, which is the Attorney General’s Chambers. If conclusions are that the grandeur and majesty of the genuinely independent is missing from such a noble sounding national office, then our barrel is bottomless. Other Guyanese would have looked across to the once untouched Audit Office, but that also is a scarred and pockmarked dead end, where any independent investigation is involved. Yes, this is how this nation has degraded from national institution to national institution, and we the citizens are the worse for it.
To say that we are at once the envy of the world, as well as its laughingstock and punching bag for cruel jokes, comes close to summing things up. It is what makes us, compel us, to run to some neighbor, some foreigner, some kind helper to clean our noses, and lift us out of the terrible mess we have created for ourselves. Are the President and his people still reading, actually listening, to appreciate how savagely this reflects on each and everyone of us? For now, we have a murder mystery from Main Street, and the exhortation from a luminous Guyanese attorney has to do with witness protection for Sergeant Dion Bascom, and (here we go again) an independent probe for truth in this radioactive murder brew.
Imagine how far this country has fallen. A murder that should have been solved with 24-48 hours after its occurrence, now takes on all the trappings of a national disgrace requiring an international independent investigation. It is not a political murder, a human rights activist’s murder, but a premeditated murderous execution no less, and which unfolded almost in President Ali’s kitchen. Powerful orchestrators are so wanton in their reckless, so depraved in their indifference, that their dirty deed could not be done far away from the precious grounds reserved for this nation’s leader, President Ali himself. From On the surface, he doesn’t seem too troubled, and the devil in me wonders if it is because the names named may be among his own treasured folks, so they have to be protected at all costs, and by any means. Isn’t this what played out in the aftermath?
Thus, when I hear Attorney Nigel Hughes calling for witness protection for Dion Bascom, I say that it is done, only it is not for the whistleblowing policeman. Regarding the call for an independent investigation, that depends on the definition of independent and what is represented by investigation. I rest.
