Dear Editor,
The Attorney General’s theatrical condemnation of Azruddin Mohamed’s wheelbarrow stunt — a man paying a $1‑million court order in coins and small bills — pretends to defend the “rule of law.” In reality, it exposes a dual judicial system in Guyana: one set of rules for the politically exposed, another for the politically protected.
Mohamed’s wheelbarrows were a form of satirical performance of his own persecution. Bank accounts reportedly frozen, access to formal channels curtailed, he is forced to comply in the most absurd fashion imaginable. The AG brands this “ridicule of the courts.” But the real ridicule is the non‑enforcement of far larger judgments against a man who walks the same corridors unbothered — Mikhail Rodrigues, the “Guyanese Critic.
Rodrigues has been ordered to pay the Mohameds $52 million in defamation, with that judgment now upheld on appeal. He has also been ordered to pay $22.5 million in another defamation case, again with the Full Court refusing to set aside the default judgment. On top of that, he has contempt and rent‑related judgments running into millions, yet the enforcement machinery appears to move in slow motion, if at all.
Meanwhile, this same man is handed multi‑hundred‑million‑dollar contracts from the state, appears at extradition and other court hearings like a VIP commentator, and speaks as if he is the guardian of justice, not its debtor. Judges fail to hold him in contempt; the AG does not spearhead enforcement; the Treasury does not claw back a $121‑million contract mobilization fee it is owed.
It is not Azruddin Mohamed who is trampling the rule of law. It is a system that weaponizes enforcement against opponents while shielding allies. When the AG promises, “The arms of the law are long… the law will be applied,” he must mean all judgments, not only the ones that fit the political script.
If the judiciary is not willing to apply the same force to the Guyanese Critic as it does to their political enemies, then the “rule of law” is dead — and what remains is nothing but political theater.
Yours faithfully,
Hemdutt Kumar
