The Temerity of Guyana’s Attorney General Anil Nandlall and his Hollow Pursuit of ‘Justice’

A government that builds its house on sand has no moral authority to condemn the foundations of another. This is the unsettling truth playing out in Guyana, a nation on the precipice of an oil-fueled transformation, yet seemingly trapped in a cycle of political vengeance and staggering hypocrisy.

The recent, relentless pursuit of Opposition Whip Azruddin Mohamed—branded a “fugitive offender” by Attorney General Anil Nandlall is not a story about the rule of law, it is a masterclass in political distraction. It is the audacious tactic of a regime, facing mounting allegations of its own endemic corruption and grave unanswered crimes, pointing a trembling, accusatory finger elsewhere.

Consider the backdrop against which this prosecutorial zeal is displayed. This is an administration that ascended to power under President Irfaan Ali, who himself faced two dozen fraud charges before they were mysteriously dropped upon his party’s electoral victory. The message sent was corrosive; the law is not a pillar of society, but a tool of political convenience.

Now, in office, the pattern has not just continued; it has deepened. The litany of unresolved, high-profile atrocities hangs over this government like a pall. The execution-style murders of individuals like political activist Courtney Crum-Ewing, who was gunned down for protesting, and the Sash Sawh family—a former minister and his siblings—remain shrouded in mystery, their cries for justice echoing into a void of official inertia. The brazen killings of individuals like Ronald Waddle and the Bacchus brothers, and the troubling deaths of Donna McKenna and Adriana Saraswat, are not footnotes. They are screaming headlines of a state failing in its most basic duty; to protect its citizens and hold perpetrators accountable, regardless of political affiliation.

Where is the Attorney General’s fervent, weekly broadcast urgency for these victims? Where are the declarations of “national embarrassment” over this legacy of unsolved bloodshed? The silence is deafening.

Instead, we witness the spectacle of the state’s chief legal officer selectively weaponizing the law. To label an opposition parliamentarian a “fugitive” in what is essentially an unresolved case of a series of accusations, while members of one’s own administration operate with seeming impunity, is not justice, it is political theater of the most dangerous kind. It signals an intention to replace the bedrock principle of “innocent until proven guilty” with a new, sinister standard; “guilty if politically inconvenient.”

Is this the governance citizens of Guyana deserve? Here we have an Attorney General who seeks to normalize the idea that allegations against the opposition are urgent matters of state, while allegations against the state itself are inconvenient noise to be ignored. It seeks to normalize the use of legal machinery to sideline and stigmatize political opponents, all while presenting a facade of democratic order to international partners eager for stable oil investments.

The international community, particularly the United States and others invested in Guyana’s stability, must look beyond the rhetoric. A government that refuses to credibly address the murders and corruption unfolding under its own watch forfeits the moral standing to police its opponents. Investing in such a regime, without demanding consistent and transparent justice for all crimes, is to underwrite its hypocrisy.

The people of Guyana are not fools. They see the ugly disparity in how justice is pursued. They note the diplomats cavorting with the accused. They observe the foreign company heads who heed the PPP’s call to sideline government critics. They remember the names of the unavenged dead. They recognize a political vendetta dressed in judicial robes.

The pursuit of Azruddin Mohamed is a smokescreen. The real scandal is the culture of impunity and selective outrage that has taken root. True national embarrassment is not a delayed parliamentary procedure. It is a government that has forgotten that the rule of law must be a shield for the vulnerable, not a sword for the powerful. Until that changes, no amount of prosecuting opponents can cleanse the stain of their own unanswered legacy.