By GHK Lall- The areas that the PPP Government makes its priorities reveal so much about it. The government’s insecurities. Its leadership anxieties. The group’s desperations. The press is once again singled out for the sweep of government attention that emphasizes its dread of exposure, its discomfort with facing facts, dealing with truths. Not mine. Not the ones that leaders fabricate. But the ones that the Guyanese people live with, and which undermines the integrity of their existence.
I urge all Guyanese to stop and think. Observe where the PPP Government, driven to madness, spends its time, expends it energies. It is how to encircle the press, squeeze it. Perhaps, strangle it to a state of mindless impotency and stupidity, as has been the case with the captive State media, and the self-disrespecting segments in private media. When the government and President Ali should be very concerned and fully engaged in getting the struggling Guyana Police Force (GPF) to some early state of professionalism and institutional ethos, both concentrate on the press.
A bone in the throat, the independent part of it has been. The very bulwark of law and order, the GPF, is in tatters, and the Ali government has this obsession with the press. Control it. Coerce it. Cut it down to size. Pres. Ali is reported to possess a doctorate; the humble recommendation is that he uses it to liberate his mind and not incarcerate it. Fix the GPF first, commander, and Guyana will be better. Then, the press would have less to do (less that is feared).
The government is the keeper of the seals of trust. And what does the government of Dr. Ali do? Truths are shrouded in secret, Mr. President. What is there to be so sneaky about with access to information, as though some cheating partner? But the Irfaan Ali government focuses on backing the press into a corner, while there is chemically laden urinating on the law that provides for access to information. Who could be classified as this, what is that about, and where could it all lead, should not be directed at the press.
There is the Office of the Commissioner of Information, and even Forbes Burnham was not as thick and as broad and as tight as the curtains drawn around that government office. The president should see to that, and see to it that that office does not go into hiding, as though it is some fugitive fleeing from a posse, from justice.
Unfortunately, Pres. Ali’s priority is apparently focused on locking down information and continuing with the secrecies that has gives his claims of transparency a cardboard quality. I shouldn’t have to say to Guyanese that Ali’s cardboard transparency is made of sawdust. A leader who speaks a lot, and all that he delivers is sand. He would have made a good sand truck driver. But the pain in his and the government’s spleen is the independent press of Guyana, so he seeks to suppress it some more.
A former head of state is now in such a distressed state that week after week, he circles around, like a ship without a rudder. Like a sailor with a few too much inside, he stumbles and slides, rambles and rages, at the independent press and that is called democracy and leadership (and citizenship) worthy of imitation. A small country with a project that is so far slated to cost in the vicinity of a whopping one third of its last national budget, and there is less information instead of more.
Vice Pres. Jagdeo has sent the press on so many wild goose chases that he has arrived in a most unacceptable place for himself. Not one goose left to bait his tricks. A man who should be a leader of national standing, but one who reduces himself to that of a low operator. Where is Excellency Ali with US$2 billion hanging over Guyanese heads, and with nothing presented that stands as the backbone of its use?
He is fascinated with the workings of the press. He is enraged because, with every new sentence, it exposes every hidden sore and scar that have been so much an inseparable aspect of his leadership. This is why the PPP Govt and its leaders are so bent on hammering, curling, ad degrading every kind of local expression (and their channels) to a mold of its liking.
So, Pres. Ali races forward on his warhorse: he is ready to deal with the outlaw press, its hardcase badmen. Is this man a leader in a democracy, or is he a relentless pusher towards what threatens the profaning? To the president, a reminder is gifted. Those who live in darkness, and come to love it, they fear the light.
Like ole higues and graverobbers, they need darkness to operate; and the deeper the darkness, the more they prosper. For a time. President Ali takes aim at the press. He is in good company. There was Uncle Joe (Russia). There was Burnham (Guyana); [he could check with Burnham’s trusted dirty trick agent who now stands by his own elbow. Last there’s the newest Uncle Sam, with his love for beautiful developments.
Talk about airtight systems, and there was Russia and North Korea. The word still succeeds to get out. Carry on smartly, Mr. President.
