The lawlessness rises

And the lawlessness spreads. Three men were arrested by police for waylaying travellers on the Rockstone Road. From their modus operandi of digging a ditch across the road forcing the motorists to slow down so that they could pounce on them, it’s obvious that these robbers are graduates from the Linden protests.
Such acts have become common in the more direct environs of Linden. It started as shakedowns to ‘feed the protesters’ and inevitably it grew into the present rampant banditry, most of which is not being reported, because the victims are scared stiff. The ones in Rockstone were apprehended only because the Joint Services responded to reports from others than the ones being robbed.
From an earlier incident of the looting of a phone store of millions in stock, organisers of the protests expressed their disagreement with this kind of lawless behaviour.
But the very act of blocking the roads is lawless behaviour. The rights of the people who want to traverse those roads – paid for by the people of this country, and open to all citizens – are being violated by the protesters. Then there are the people in the deeper interior.
Because of the sums being extorted from businessmen transporting goods there, the cost of living has skyrocketed in those regions. These communities have always been the most poverty stricken ones in the country – by a huge margin. Who’s shedding any tears for them today? Yet, we’ll hear from the same opposition sponsoring the protests about the government not doing enough for the hinterland population! We’re sure there will be some that’ll say we’re ‘stereotyping’ the protesters. But we’re only reporting from what’s going on and what always happens in these cases – whatever might be the intentions of the organisers.
In addition to the encouragement of the ‘learned helplessness’ syndrome by the organisers , who’ve rejected the intervention of the business community, for the handouts to be extorted from the government, we’re predicting that the lawlessness presently unleashed will persist.
We’re calling upon responsible leaders in the opposition to look at the long-term prospects for Linden – both from the standpoint of businesses that will leave and those that will cancel their plans to set up shop there. And from the standpoint of Lindeners succumbing to the ‘dark side’. The Rockstone incident is only the beginning.

Racial incitement
Freddy Kissoon reported on his exploits at the funeral of the three Lindeners killed at their protests rejecting the equalisation of their electricity rates with those of the rest of Guyana. He said one person asked him in “Gangaram and Adelphi in Berbice, PPP supporters enjoy free water from GWI, so why can’t Linden get free electricity”? One might say Kissoon was merely passing on a question. But two things are revealed in the question – and in the reporting. First, it is the kind of racial propaganda that is circulating by the opposition – especially the AFC in the present. To talk of residents of Gangaram and Adelphi in Berbice is to talk about Indians – getting “freeness”. Then the opposition, including Kissoon, knows better: GuySuCo gave over all its sugar- worker funded wells, etc to the government – which now charges for water. But the Berbicians didn’t protest when this was done.
Talk shop or food shop? It was reported that the cost for hosting each parliamentary session costs a cool Gy$ 1.7 million! Considering that we only have 65 parliamentarians, that works out to over Gy$ 26,000 per head. And this doesn’t cover the cost of actually running the Public Buildings’ air conditioners, etc. We’re talking of just incidentals.
Did you ever wonder what is the biggest item on that boondoogle? FOOD!! If you have ever seen our parliamentarians line up at the trough, you wouldn’t be surprised. If you thought that ‘talking’ was the criterion for being sent to Parliament, forget it. It’s how fast and how much.