By GHK Lall- Whether PPP or PNC (or WIN) supporter, voters can always count on Pres. Ali to say the right thing. Whether naysayer or believer, listening to the chief can turn a man from a pagan to a saint. The problem is that while Dr. Ali says all the right things almost all the time, he loses a step, then a mile, when it comes to making good on his words. He is now sending out his warning: “We are going to come after you hard and strong.” The you in that sentence that drips with the sleek are none other than gold miners. For a long time, they were a very prized constituency for the PPP and Mr. Ali himself.
Recall Excellency Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali in an armored war tank? The softer, comforting euphemism was ‘bulletproof vehicle.’ I would like to, but cannot claim ownership of such a machine. It didn’t belong to any member of civil society. Or one from Guyana’s religious community, to stretch matters. That was then, this is now: “We are going to come after you hard and strong.” Reform is always welcomed. But how many people believe that Guyanese are that stupid is what I struggle with, where I falter?
When there was long ago overseas warning, that was undermined, mocked. Political and personal prosperity were the lot of more than a few. Let’s retrace steps for a better idea of how the political reaping and prospering worked. Recall that no-confidence motion. To put it nuancedly, it wasn’t free. For emphasis, that no confidence motion of December 19, 2018 cost a lot of money, and not in Guyana dollars. Guess who paid? They weren’t from the oil sector. Or the manufacturing sector. Or the sugar and rice sector.
By a process of elimination, there is the mining sector left standing and being closely involved in that no confidence motion being arranged, orchestrated, sponsored, finalized, and delivered. Guess who prospered? It wasn’t the PNC of David Granger. Nor the AFC. In fact, both groups suffered the ignominy of one of their own turning yellow, seeing red, and grabbing green. A different kind of green. Again, by process of elimination who was left standing in political Guyana, and who made hay at the expense of political opponents? Guyanese can do the arithmetic.
That parliamentary no confidence motion was long in the making, and it wasn’t for the people, or some unheard of, upside down version, of patriotism. It was what incentivizes such a crossed up, crossover, and double-crossing state of mind long before December 2018. It took big people who can think big to make big things like a no confidence motion come to a successful big bang conclusion that is heard to this day.
All the while, the FBI and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security warning from several years back hung in the air like a red meteor. Beware. Be sensible and be sure to keep distance. I don’t know if being in the inside of a bulletproof vehicle to the grandest of State occasions, an inaugural, qualifies as a safe distance. But the moment was of who was held as a special friend, a trusted comrade, and who had arrived. In style. In defiance of all that the Americans had said.
Today, the word making its way across Guyana, from the Expo to the Essequibo is “we are going to come after you hard and strong.” It is way past the time that I take up the PPP religion. Shake hands with the right hand, send a protective signal with the left, and with those jobs completed, then sit back and collect with both hands. In this country, there are words that mean something, and there are words that mean nothing. It is my belief that, when pols in general say one thing they, more often than not, mean something else. Words that are supposed to sound authoritative and impressive have been sabotaged by the negative. What is often incestuous. Relationships. Friendships. Sponsorships.
Conclusion: when the white people watching, there’s housecleaning. When the heat is on from the foreigners, the word is cooldown, because we are going to have to do something to prove sincerity. We are going to get you. Could be friends sacrificed. Or friends turning upon friends, and turning them in. Remember the textbooks. The one called the prisoner’s dilemma, where one is forced to turn on the other. Everybody hustling to save their own skin. Rats abandoning a sinking ship fits. . We are going to get you. When farces were being shared out, Guyana got a tsunami of them.
