Category: Eyewitness

…and Basil Williams Basil Williams was made the Attorney General and Minister of Justice of Guyana in 2015, once the PNC-led coalition slipped into office. And SLIP in it did…by less than 5000 votes!! While he certainly wasn’t in any way, shape or form noted for any legal prowess, he HAD stuck with the PNC through the years. Most would remember his (in)famous conversation with Winston Felix, then Commissioner of Police (and now PNC Minister of Citizenship), wherein they conspired to head off the PPP Minister of Home Affairs, Gail…

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…the Ides of March The “Ides of March” was a medieval marker for the 15th of several months – including March – from where one could count how far in the month one had advanced. But the Bard, in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, made it eternally famous when he had a soothsayer warn Caesar, “Beware the ides of March”, even as Caesar was surrounded by his closest friends, Brutus and Anthony, and was at the height of popularity, with the masses clamouring to make him king. Well, for us in Guyana,…

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…not even for a day At the flag raising ceremony to usher in Republic Day, President Granger said, “Everyone wins when the nation is united.” Of course, this is true…but what does it have to do with the price of psidium??!! This is the kind of banal homilies that Granger’s been spewing since he took over the Presidency almost four years ago, even as his actions have led to the most intense polarisation of our land of “six peoples” in decades!! Take the theme for Mashramani that was to follow…

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…in Venezuela? We know the end game in Venezuela’s been taking some time. But “this time na lang time” – even for the lone superpower standing. Time there was when the Marines would’ve long been dispatched after President Trump did a Henry II and exclaimed “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Maduro?” Maduro, after all — like Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket — just didn’t get it that the old order had to go. It’s not just a clash of ideologies any longer – socialism versus capitalism —…

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…of Trump’s message The Government rag boasted that President Trump “congratulated” President Granger and Guyana on our 49th Republic Anniversary. But Burnham once castigated his followers during their 1979 Biennial Congress, “Comrades, the problem with you is you only read what’s on TOP of the lines! You have to also read BETWEEN the lines.” So, taking that prompt, let’s read between the lines of the statement: “As your government and the people of Guyana assess the future direction of your country, know that the US recognises and honours Guyana’s respect…

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…in Venezuela? We know the end game in Venezuela’s been taking some time. But “this time na lang time” – even for the lone superpower standing. Time there was when the Marines would’ve long been dispatched after President Trump did a Henry II and exclaimed “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Maduro?” Maduro, after all — like Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket — just didn’t get it that the old order had to go. It’s not just a clash of ideologies any longer – socialism versus capitalism —…

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…and labour Was a time when the world was a very simple place to live in: that time when “Jagan and Burnham” were together for a brief moment in the fifties. In politics, it was us against the “imperialists” and in the economy it was labour, represented by trade unions, against those dastardly (running dog) “capitalists”. In politics, however, the apple of power to run an independent Guyana was introduced into our little Eden and our “land of six races” was torn asunder as we were cast into the hell…

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…PNC/AFC democratic breach? It’s a fact of life that in the elections season, incumbent governments will try to get away with slipping in some campaigning and pass it off as “just doing our (official) job, man”!! When in the Opposition back in 2011 and 2015, the PNC/APNU and AFC really went after the then PPP Government for the practice – ranging from the G$10,000 coupons they’d distributed for years to handing out some All-Terrain Vehicles to a couple of Amerindian villages! But the practices of the PPP look like playing…

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…of Public Sector discrimination There’s a story in the press about the Bertrand Collins Public Service College, wherein the Director— (Retd) Col Lawrence Paul — says they “face a diversity problem” in their student body!! To be fair to Col Paul, he did say it wasn’t easy figuring out the ethnicity of some recruits. The Director, however, also mentioned that they make a special effort to ensure “hinterland” students are aware of the opportunity. This, of course, is very commendable, because he’s obviously trying to recruit more Amerindians into the…

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…in GECOM Tag teams are a standard feature in professional wrestling. The trick is to have a “fresh” partner ready to enter the ring to wallop the other wrestler when he’s down. It’s not incidental that professional wrestling is pure theatre with the moves and even the results, totally fixed. Tag teams simply double the variations of the fix. Not endowed with professional wrestlers in Guyana, the PNC-led coalition has introduced the tag-team tactic in the operations of GECOM to pummel the PPP into oblivion, as they struggle for the…

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