By GHK Lall-Study what is happening in Guyana, and the contradictions emphasize pure damnation. I put two questions before fellow Guyanese, with Americans following. What is happening here in a steady stream: the vulgar, indefensible contradictions of a country that stands naked and exposed before all? Or, the blatant contradictions of a revolting PPP, the ugliness of a group and government enshrined in diabolical darkness?
The PPP Govt-from Drs. Ali, Jagdeo, Nandlall, sundry others-insists that democracy’s freedoms are as free as the air, freer than uncaged birds. There’s the fatality of Stabroek News. Not of a leaf falling in a forest. But of a grove forced into a state of collapse for lack of oxygen.
Payment for its services to the people from the dollars of the people. The PPP Govt withheld with calculating objective now accomplished: Stabroek going down. I hear that Bharrat Jagdeo is invisible. He may be so, but he’s no less impotent; his groundwork producing results, exhibiting his larger footprint. It is the first contradiction.
Second, the PPP Govt can enthusiastically pay American lobbyists over $200 million a year to do smear jobs, garbage works, the tasks of untouchables. The selling of Guyana. What a light shone.
But the government can’t pay Stabroek News $100 million that keeps extending, dragging out. Red tape, or the green slime that announces globally what Guyana’s PPP democracy is about. A no brainer, the man said. And, quite another flavour of the priority of Local Content. It is the evening of the second contradiction.
Third, the PPP Govt propagandises its record on freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to differ, and there is what I term the deformities of the unhinged and deranged. Stabroek News on the way out. And, one 70-year-old citizen is subjected to the vile and vicious power of State assets and PPP Govt-controlled men seeking to shut him up, snuff him out. Others are less foully addressed.
I’m certain that Hon Minister Vindya Persaud would shout elder abuse, if political complexion and temps were different. The lawman, Hon. Anil Nandlall, would thunder -there’s the law, with none above. Guyana is a country of laws, not men. The man has spoken. Listen to this herald. The spittle from his trumpet blotches his face, drips down to his chin. There it stains and smells. Bless his clean, democratic heart. It is the morning of the third contradiction. The day has now begun. It is long.
Fourth, the PPP Govt takes great pleasure in reminding and emphasizing how Burnham was bad, bad, bad. Today, from whichever heaven or hell he resides, he must be chortling and celebrating: de PPP seh me pat black. Check out the PPP pot! Whose pot is blacker than black? First, the PPP control the Police. The PPP commandeer the public service. The PPP bearhug the private sector.
The PPP penetrate, preside over the army. The PPP closing down the media, steering the judiciary. But the PPP proudly claims that Guyana is a democracy, when its main arms have been amputated by the machinations of Freedom House and Office of the President (and VP and OPM). Sorry, mon general. The PPP made an industry of Burnham was a dictator, a full-blown tyrant. Whose pot now blacker than Burnham’s record of blackness? These are the multiplications of contradictions. (I kno l’il arithmetic tuh, Daktar Ashni.
Fifth (it may be number 10), the PPP Govt is democratic. The Americans say so with a straight face. From oilman John Hess to Excellency Nicole D. Theriot, lofty plenipotentiary, in her plate-glass ivory tower. The ambassador knows more than all Guyanese put together. But duty calls. Interests. There’s oil, Exxon, Chevron, hemispheric calculations.
In obsequious deference, the PPP Govt has taken curry favoring to a new level of meaning. Uncharted, the dollar store maestro may say. My fellow Americans love to prattle about democracy and its sacred pillars, and the rights of man, how those are inviolable. Apparently, when the PPP Govt is in the picture, a radically different standard applies. Or none at all. Man! Do Americans make those ole time Commies and their claims of democracies look like Father Christmas! Contradiction number X. I lost count.
Last, the PPP Govt says it is about capitalism’s free enterprise. Oh yes, it is! O, how self-enriching it is for fathers and sons in the PPP. Capitalism’s freedoms, for sure. But also, Stalin’s, Putin’s and Jinping’ communistic controls. Total control. Thus, the story, the tragedies, of Guyana’s contradictions. Thus, the sum of the PPP Govt contradictions, its lawless orgies, calumnies. Time for a blog.
