…fallen Police
The Minister of Public Security, Khemraj Ramjattan, and the Commissioner of Police (ag), David Ramnarine, spoke at the annual ceremony “honouring” Policemen killed in the line of duty since 1913. The number is 63. One suspects that the organisers began their body-count from 1913 because the numbers killed from the GPF’s formation in 1839 to that point could be counted on the fingers of their hands.
But what your Eyewitness found surprising was the studied refusal of the two speakers to mention our very recent history, when the most Police ranks were murdered in the history of Guyana. In a ten-month period of 2003, for instance, FIFTEEN Policemen were murdered – and most of their relatives would’ve been in the audience. Wouldn’t they’ve wanted to know why their loved ones were killed by the so-called “Freedom Fighters” formed around five prison escapees??
After all, they hear and read ad nauseam about the Police and other armed gangs killing 400 black youths. Even if that number’s correct – and it’s not — if so many Policemen were also killed, don’t they deserve an equal-opportunity mention? One hears from the partisans of the “400” about Policemen acting outside of their remit and becoming judges, juries and executioners. But in the absence of any comment by the partisans of the Police (Ramjattan and Ramnarine?) about who were most of those 400, one’s left to conclude they were innocent choir-boys out picking daisies!
Such a one-sided narrative implicitly and explicitly demonises the Police, and has to demotivate the conscientious ones from vigorously performing their duties. Is this a factor that contributes to the extraordinary number of law enforcement officials who have been caught recently making “runnings”? Another missing part of the narrative is what happened to all those youths who were willingly recruited into the services of the “Freedom Fighters”? Like being lookouts and snitches.
Are they now all grown up and continuing the traditions they were exposed to? Are we now still reaping the harvest from the poisoned tree that was planted in Buxton and other communities, like Agricola? If your Eyewitness were Ramjattan (Yikes!!) he would’ve invited Basil Williams and Winston Felix (then CoP) and asked them to explain their (in)famous taped conversation about the Agricola Massacre. He’s sure the families of the dead Policemen from that era would’ve liked to know exactly what went down there…since it’s just another iteration of what happened to their loved ones.
But, instead, we had what was just another “heading off” of the Guyanese people from discovering the roots of the cancer, which is still metastasising and lurking to strike when deemed necessary.
Like if the PPP were to win in 2020.
…Nagamootoo Twist
Poor Nagamootoo. Like Dickens’ famous hero Oliver Twist, he just can’t seem to forget his childhood travails. In his Chronic Column, which constitutes his singular duty as Prime Minister of our fair land, he whines once again about how he was wronged in the fifty years he was in the PPP. If he’s to be believed, the only conclusion one can reach is the wanker’s got to be a masochist to stick it out so long!!
But the narrative’s unfortunately VERY selective. He rails against a “gang of eight” that controlled the PPP’s 15-member Executive Committee after the passing of Cheddi Jagan; which, led by his arch-nemesis Jagdeo, wronged him constantly…until he couldn’t bear it any longer, so he joined the PNC to oust the PPP! But who was it who orchestrated the numerous expulsions from the PPP, which he described, before Jagdeo came on the scene? Wasn’t it Jagan himself? Why doesn’t Nagamootoo describe him as a “Gang of One”??
Or the “Gang of Two” in the PNC, that neutered him!!
…or forgetting?
Trotman, Senior Minister of Natural Resources, on behalf of the AFC, says they’re waiting for an investigation into the (taped exploits) of his Junior Minister, Simona “I is” Broomes, boss at the Amazonia Mall in Providence.
Can’t he just review the tape with “I is”??