Category: Eyewitness

…and principles? Word is, Finance Minister Winston Jordan just signed on the dotted line for a US$900 million loan from the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB). If this manifests itself, that fella Raymond Chickerie, who’d been pushing the PPP Government for years to become a member of the Bank would be vindicated! This finally occurred two years ago to the day with the new PNC-led coalition Government which announced we’d be eligible for “access to concessionary resources, grants and interest free loans.” While Guyana has a 10 per cent Muslim population,…

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…for slavery CariCom will be writing Britain and the other European countries that conducted and benefited from the African Slave Trade and plantation slavery, to remind them about the claims for reparations it made against them back in 2013. It’s a shame they’ve had to do this at a time when the UN’s pushing its entire collection of 196 countries to “do something” about the dread status of Africans in this “International Decade of People of African Descent” (IDPAD). Since it would be racist that this is due to just…

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Breaking… …Venezuelan eye-pass Well, as old people say, “boat gone a wata…cyaan turn back!” on the eye-pass the Venezuelans have been taking on us for fifty-six years after they claimed two-thirds of Guyana. It was Feb 1962 when they told the UN that the 1899 Arbitral Award that fixed our border, was “null and void”. So its poetic justice that the UN Secretary General decided to send the controversy to the ICJ for a decision. But not surprisingly, Maduro immediately announced Venezuela won’t be accepting the ICJ’s decision. Meaning, of…

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…in Guyanese elections Deus ex machina – the god from the machine – was a device from ancient Greek theatre by which the god was lowered onto the stage by a crane to intervene in the goings-on there. Nowadays, it signals an author concocting an intervention to get him out of a contradiction in the plot, which is completely out of the blue. It can also happen in real life. Recently, that data mining company, Cambridge Analytica (CA), has been in the news; more from the issue of Facebook –…

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…turned horror story The Burnham dictatorship brought the economy and society down to its knees and forced Guyanese to become refugees in so many countries today we’re found in probably all of the 196 countries that make up the United Nations!! Quite a feat for a country whose population has never reached one million – but then maybe that’s exactly why!! Another accomplishment of the PNC’s founder-leader that his present acolytes can boast about: Guyana – the amazing shrinking country!! As a colony of Britain for centuries and ruled alongside…

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…to Father of the Nation March 22, 2018 marks the centenary of the birth of Dr Cheddi Jagan. As part of the month-long series of activities commemorating the event, the Cheddi Jagan Research Centre (CJRC) had arranged with the Guyana Post Office Corporation (GPOC) to issue a commemorative stamp in the great man’s honour. Now, commemorative stamps are routinely issued by all countries to mark special events. In fact, right here in Guyana, the Post Office had issued the first one with a Guyanese face in 1970, when they featured…

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…of Integrity More than anything else, the opposition PNC/APNU/AFC combined, after 2011, made “corruption” their major plank against the PPP government. They certainly couldn’t do anything about the PPP’s highest growth rate in the region!! Supported by a vicious spit-press, they got some mud to stick; and along the 23-year “incumbency factor”, was probably the reason for the PPP losing the 2015 elections by a whisker. In their manifesto, the combined promised to eradicate corruption by Government officials through a “Code of Conduct” that would be enacted in the first…

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…of “democratic” propaganda The Chronic is in the news again; and ultimately, for the same reason it scandalised folks who actually believed this PNC-led coalition would be any different from the first PNC government in 1964-1985. Right after it slid into government in 2015, during its first Budget debate in August of that year, a Chronic reporter penned a story headlined: “Govt blunders on Budget Estimates…violates laws assented to by President Granger”. PM Nagamootoo, who’d been reduced to running the state media, objected vehemently to the headline and story, and…

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…in sugar The arrogance of this Government and its minions knows no bounds. Your Eyewitness still can’t get over the comments made by the PNC-appointed REO of Reg 6 at the event to commemorate the 105th anniversary of 14 workers murdered by the colonial government on behalf of the sugar producers in 1913. She said the 5700 fired sugar workers are too “timid and afraid” to take advantage of the Government’s “diversification” of the sugar industry, and wanted them to know what it took for them to be “enjoying the…

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…a cuirass? In case you wondered why Europe’s indignant about the Tariffs Trump slapped on aluminium and steel imports, just consider the outright ban on our catfish family – gilbakka, cuirass, hassar (yes, it’s a catfish!) and “catfish”. It’s all about restricting world trade, which isn’t kosher. For hundreds of years, these developed countries had been pushing “free trade” — which means not imposing measures that would increase costs at the point of entry — when THEY had stuff they wanted to push down our throats. But now that the…

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