I note with interest the letter dated July 27, 2024, and captioned “Requesting Legal Assistance” from the Hon. Attorney General of Guyana, Mr. Anil Nandlall, SC, MP (AG) to Mr. Merrick B. Garland, US Attorney General. In the letter referenced, Guyana’s AG expresses “deep concerns over Rickford Burke…who continues to use the social media platform of his social Facebook page to launch almost daily attacks against the government and citizens of Guyana….”. Interesting and concerning, to say the least. When AG Nandlall went further by pointing to Mr. Burke’s “clear and evident to excite racial hostility among the different races” then the matter clearly reached a newer and sharper summit of urgency. With this as partial background only-it is enough-the following thoughts are articulated.
To begin with, there is neither association nor appreciation nor subscriptions for some of the snippets that have come to me and linked to Mr. Burke. I have found that the middle road, which is even more perilous, serves me best, is more of a natural fit. Next, AG Nandlall is congratulated for the spirited and dogged piloting of the concerns of the PPP Government to the US Government for redress and more tranquil climes locally. The AG has certainly lived up to the demands of his high office in his relentless pursuit of the Rickford Burke threat and his efforts to neutralize or, at least, minimize.
The disappointment in some parts of Guyana, and definitely in this corner, is that AG Nandlall has failed to manifest anywhere near that alacrity and energy when there are social media threats and incitements in the domestic environment. To make matters more glaring, AG Nandlall has been the very image of disinterest, disconnection, and distance when people close linked to his own PPP Government have used, abused, and misused the freedoms of social media platform(s) to attack Guyanese who have broken no law.
In instances involving a PPP Government most likely intellectually authored and politically sponsored, social media presence hiding under the veil of Live in Guyana, and reviling law-abiding Guyanese, AG Nandlall has been exemplary in his silence, the epitome of apathy. He is unconcerned about the incendiary and hostile in Guyana, but overwrought about Mr. Burke and his fulminations in the land of the free, the USA.
Why that mental malaise, AG Nandlall? How could that dereliction be, Mr. AG? Is it because it is a senior comrade, both in the PPP and in the PPP Government, with cabinet status, Mr. AG Nandlall? Does the political intimacy of President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo to the social media perps contribute in any way to the appalling lack of action against those who break the law? The highest levels in the US Government are approached for a resolution in the Rickford Burke condition that causes so much PPP agitation and frustration.
I recognize a mission to get a man underway. It would halo the PPP Government of Excellencies Ali and Jagdeo (and AG Nandlall) with a needed degree of credibility to endeavor just as fiercely to unfrock PPP agents operating clandestinely and criminally on social media. AG Nandlall should find the conviction and courage to manifest identical enthusiasm to deliver to the law those in his government, who work in the shadows to silence Guyanese who expose the weaknesses and failures of his government, his leaders, and cause both no end of embarrassments and torments.
He risks besmirching himself when he registers as less brisk and less bright on those occasions that Guyanese are being subject to racial hostility and the racially incendiary right here. The AG should know that the PPP-influenced Live in Guyana in the hands of his own belong in the company of racists and hatemongers. In the case of some Guyanese (including my own), I assert that the PPP Government is using its thugs (the color should not astonish) to deliver what is reverse racial hostility and incitements.
The PPP Government gets a certain kind of local to do a certain kind of dirty work to bring down those who, by their critical actions and unflinching postures attract labels as insurgents and racial subversives in this country. Most of them are neither Black nor Bronze. In contrast, the perpetrators are not primarily Indian. Is that is not a sickening form of reverse racial hostility. Moreover, the public record evidence one PPP Government leader urging his followers to utilize the length and breadth of social to deal with those that I call tribal renegades.
To remind, in July 2024, AG Nandlall wrote US Attorney General Garland about Rickford Burke and Guyana Government alarms. In the same vein, AG Nandlall should have written Guyana’s Commissioner of Police (and others) in all those instances when the PPP’s Live in Guyana incited racial hostility and differences among Guyanese against other law-abiding Guyanese. There are those who stand as Exhibits 1, 2, and 3, if not more, with me among them. I think and believe with absolute conviction that Messrs. Nandlall, Ali, Jagdeo know those who are involved, may even have some insights about why they are free. Responsibility for alleged racial hostility and racial aggressiveness-forward or reverse-should not be awarded that special status, where Mr. Rickford Burke is monopolist and monologist. Do something proper locally, AG Nandlall, or do the right thing: disappear.