By GHK Lall- Guyanese are familiar with ulterior motives and hidden agendas. They live in an environment awash with it. Political culture. Institutional disgrace. Professional calculation. Individual positioning. All of these and more. The Justice Gino Persaud development raised the consciousness of Guyanese of what this country is; removed residual scales from the eyes.
The PPP Govt raised its hands. See! Clean. Bleached and disinfected, then perfumed. I wanted to take that, guardedly. It is a U.S. matter, under its control, with its policies and procedures followed. The Guyana Government is cleared. Then, somebody in Office of the President, or the Office of the Minister of Justice, should explain this post U.S. “visa review” event. It took place at the Cheddi Jagan Int’l Airport (CJIA) within days of Justice Persaud’s initial travel itinerary thwarted.
He had already checked-in for his Jamaica conference via Trinidad. While waiting to board, his name was called on the CJIA’s public address system. He reversed steps; had his baggage searched. Don’t know if he was body searched. The search process took about one hour. My fellow Guyanese: I plead for an honest examination of what occurred at Justice Persaud’s second attempt to get to Jamaica.
First, he checked-in, passed through other official checkpoints. Thumbs up! Then, his name is broadcast (plastered) across the length and breadth of the international travel corridors of the CJIA. Intentional or accidental? Simply procedural. I believe that it was deliberate. The PPP Govt wanted to humiliate this citizen, this upstart judge. Send a message to all Guyanese. Before the largest audience, local and international; with the broadest brush that would tar and retar him.
Where is the U.S. Government’s hand in that setup? In the domestic arena, under the control of Guyanese authorities, Justice Persaud is allowed to move through the check-in counters, immigration and customs control points, and then publicly recalled to wring the knife. But the PPP Govt insists that it has NOTHING TO DO WITH his U.S. “visa review” developments.
It inspires to see that the PPP Govt is that attentive to enhanced due diligence. Perhaps, Gino Persaud is now a marked man, rated a high-risk traveler. The PPP Govt has lied through its teeth before. It is lying through its nose, eyes, and ears now. It is caught in a lie. If no involvement, then why the extended effort days later. Why the harassment?
I cast my eyes elsewhere. Commendations are extended to Acting Chancellor Roxanne George-Wiltshire. I’m impressed. I cheer Honourable Chancellor for her quiet, continuous support to Justice Persaud, one of Guyana judiciary’s finest, in his time of PPP Govt-sponsored terrorism. I wish I could applaud Guyana’s legal fraternity. For men and women of words, where the hell is thy tongue? What happened to thine heart? Did it turn yellow?
Or are hearts too busy weighing the positives and negatives of taking a stand for Justice Persaud, a brother under the gown? When the heart goes, the brain was already gone. The guts long rotted. Silence tells me that men are maneuvering, so that they don’t come out on the wrong side of those with the power to confer favors.
Jesus Christ! Is this where honor has plunged, where integrity is buried, and for what principle is sacrificed? And I thought that the PPP Govt and its godchild Live in Guyana were the sleaziest, and scums of the earth. Men in suits and women in designer clothing make an unscrupulous and duplicitous PPP Govt look presentable in comparison. I remember Primo Levi” “Monsters exist, but they are too few in number to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are the common men, the functionaries ready to believe and to act without asking questions.”
Fellow Guyanese, fellow Americans, I submit that when silence reigns due to odious motives, due to repulsive agendas, then honor and principle are the first casualties. Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi’s words live on, cut deeply, sear the soul. With the public exception of Justice Courtney Abel, the private efforts of acting chancellor George-Wiltshire, this is how crassly calculating citizens of this Republic soil themselves, besmirch their profession.
Lord God, keep me far from these people. Given that 44 countries are at that conference in Jamaica, it is the best and biggest forum for the deplorable state of governance in Guyana, and the pressures on its judiciary to be highlighted in neon lights.
