The Dharamlall Dilemma; A Test for Guyana’s Rule of Law

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Guyanese could release their breath.  Former Minister Nigel Dharamlall has been spared the worst, is now as free as the wind.  The issue at hand is where the wind will take him.  From my perspective, the winds are most favorable, and they have the strongest origins.  They have the powerful tailwind of top PPP strongman, Vice President Dr. Jagdeo.  In case anybody is asking about who ‘they’ encircle, start with party comrades, party anxious (serial wrongdoers themselves), and watchful citizens concerned about such frivolities as rule of law, and the supremacy of man (PPP men [and women]) in the upside down context of Guyana.
It may look to some as though Mr. Dharamlall came up with the dirty end of the stick, was made into scapegoat and not just for his adventures, but as the sacrificial lamb for the tiny army of PPP predators and corrupters of all that is untarnished in this land.  But not to worry, the fix is already in; come to think of it, the fix was in from the start.  Just reexamine of public institutions given a constitutional charge to protect.  Just reflect on the pretenses of president to vice president to ministers.  In local parlance: the maan is wan ah wee, and if we let he down too haad, he could mek a lot ah peeple wee wee.  This was more than circling the troops, it was pulling down the Iron Curtain behind which dark and dirty and dangerous secrets [crimes] of the PPP are kept in unbreachable safety deposit boxes.

The first fixes came from the creative minds of the elected.  The second all Guyanese just heard a few days back, when this esteemed brother of mine, Barry J, came out of the shadows to state in the clearest manner where he stood with Mr. Dharamlall.  It was all positive, and glowing; there was not a single negative.  Even Martin Luther King and J. Edgar Hoover had their skeletons, but not Nigel Dharamlall, according to the almighty VP.  Brother Jagdeo gleamed with L’Oréal and Victoria Secret sheen: ‘the man is a good man.  The man has been a good and faithful party man.’  It was a river of effusiveness (and effluence aka excrement) from this mixed-up brother of mine, Dr. J (not to be confused with the basketball superstar).

How could he?  Why not, I counter?  Why not, when sex toys and sexual allegations are overwrought instances of collateral damage inflicted on a devoted party comrade by partisan citizens out to get him by any means that they could muster?  History serves up abundant examples of fiends being transformed into the merely foolish, the heroic made of the chronically harmful.  When I heard of Dr. Jagdeo’s verbal exploits, his spirited accolades for his own, two prior names and the sordid circumstances surrounding them came to mind.  In addition, it was how the PPP as a group, and the PPP leadership, took the best care of their suddenly exposed and vulnerable companions.  They had to get the two enfants terrible out of hardship’s way, and the reach of the mob howling for blood and their heads.

There was Minister Kellawan Lall.  I assure one and all that there was no relationship at all; none, folks.  He beat a boy on the head with a gun.  The police waffled, as usual.  The story went through the usual ebbs and flows.  And then, Mr. Lall was packed off to Brazil to savor the quieter air, the softer liquor, and the gun culture in that vast tract of Amazonia.  This was crisis resolution, this was justice, this was evasive action in broad daylight, compliments of an immoral political group, and an even more enmeshed and immoral leadership cadre.  Do the people in the group that make such decisions not have any standards?  Any culture?  Any regard for law?  Any respect for the Guyanese people?  If any citizen of this country has to have his hand held to reach the light of ‘they do not’ answer to all those questions, they don’t belong in the dunce cap section of the class, they should be expelled from school.

Then, there was the horror of Minister of Home Affairs, Ronald Gajraj, who made some of the most feared hitmen in the PNC look like toothless choirboys.  Though both parties have them (intellectual authors and hitmen), they will deny to the death.  It was death that visited hundreds of African Guyanese males, mostly by gunfire, under the righteous calling of “national security.”  For his herculean efforts on behalf of the party (a good party man), the resourceful Ronald Gajraj was carted off to the peaceful confines of distant India.  Given what happened to a woman and a dog, it appears that India is the favored dumping ground for PPP mistakes and embarrassments.  For it was to that fabled motherland that another Guyanese character straight out of MGM and Bollywood was deposited.

In a nutshell, when crisis comes, care for the failures in the PPP, by shuttling them off overseas.  I foresee that is the favorable fate that awaits the former minister, now innocent citizen.  Since America, Canada, and Saudi Arabia are out of the question, there is only one place left for Mr. Dharamlall, and the beauty is that it would be all in the family.

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