By GHK Lall- The PPP Government thought it had everything lined up. All the right people, all the right resources, firmly in place. All the t’s crossed, and the I’s dotted. Then, something crossed up all the scheming, prearranging, planning. Bail for the father and son Mohamed combo. If they were a Kentucky Fried Chicken combo, it would be finger-lickin’ good, but on the very costly side. Instead of diving more deeply into the field of gastronomy, the preference is to deal in the literary, and with two of the finest exponents ever.
America’s John Steinbeck, Nobel Prize winner in literature, and one of his enthralling masterpieces: Of Mice and Men. One hundred and fifty years before Steinbeck, there was the Scottish master, Robert Burns, with his epic poem “The Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men”. To their cores, the two magnificent works confirm that, after all the composing and arranging, after all the orchestrating and conducting, something could still go wrong. Horribly wrong, with the toiling workers in the PPP Government ready to swear to such a result, in the instance of the haste and push to get the Mohameds out of Guyana and to the USA.
All that it takes is for one flicker to put a dampener into the hamper. The acting chief magistrate answered the call of duty, the call of the law. It was yes to bail; what put a fat dent into the visions of a government out to get two citizens, two men who were among the closest friends of its leaders, out of this country. All those human and physical assets lying in wait came to such a sorry waste.
Slander and squander are now more and more the primary characteristics of a government that has run amok, declares war against its citizens, those damned as undesirables; hence, unfit to be around. From taking of the many millions from the Mohameds to readying all the ducks to take them out. In handcuffs at the fingertips, in waiting machines, in the form of men waiting to jump to do any dirty deed, rancid dealing.
Offering to surrender was never going to be enough, never acceptable: too ennobling, too much of the mythologising of former brothers in the bosom, now condemned to the vilest of enemies. Enemies of the state -traitors. From where did that come? Which deep blue sea, which wild blue yonder? The Jamaicans made themselves look both funny and ragged at the same time. It is how the PPP Govt clutches at air and spit to get those its leaders are determined to transform into enemies of Guyanese.
The government had its masked men, the govt had its machineguns, and the govt had more at the ready. The same social media that the PPP Govt has made its ugly weapon now turns back, shares the images, and reports to the nation: this is what is taking place with the Mohameds, at the hands of those determined to send them sailing. Resisting arrest could not be fabricated for blind public consumption. Like the son said, “I thought they wanted to kill me there. I thought they wanted to execute me right there.” Dead men go to their graves with the secrets locked forever in their heads.
Tricky and sneaky, with anxiety at the highest pitch on the government’s part; it has plenty that it wishes desperately to stay secret. What does the government have to hide relative to its own people’s involvement in gold smuggling, other crimes? What plans does it have for parliament, and possibly arranging five buyouts? What, what, what, and so much so, that the Mohameds, especially Mohamed the Younger, just have to be hurried away to America? Just get them out of the way.
The government had to know that this was coming, yet it conducted itself like the proverbial thief in the night. The forces of darkness usually do. The Mohameds have assembled a large team of vital Guyanese to defend them; thus, no need for the likes of me, and in which I have no interest. Nevertheless, I still do this little duty to the Guyanese people.
As if to condition the public Attorney General, Mohabir Anil, came out with ole news: ‘more extradition requests likely’ soon. The web cracks, the net splits. I urge him to recall Hemingway “For whom the bell tolls…” Or in that Guyanese beauty: when yuh dig grave fuh yuh mattee, dig wan fuh yusself fus.
Finally, I have this small Xmas gift for AG Nandlall, and his masters, Ali and Jagdeo. Rome had Caesar, Pompey, and Crassus, and look how power taken to excess devastated all three. The Mohameds went from brothers to traitors, in the eyes of their PPP godfathers. The best laid plans of mice men usually have fatal flaws.
