Dear Editor,

I saw a young man mercilessly lashing a little donkey with a cutlass on the Better Hope railway embankment last Sunday. When I rushed up to him and asked why he was hitting the donkey he said the donkey had too much sense!

Now this was a little donkey harnessed onto a wooden cart with a harness that was as heavy on his back. There were bleeding open wounds all down the backbone and other parts of the donkey.

How any sane human being can inflict such wounds on a poor defenceless dumb animal is beyond comprehension. As it was a Sunday, one cannot call the GSPCA but my question is if I had reported this matter to the police, would they go and help rescue this animal? The police have been undergoing training to sensitise them with regards to domestic abuse cases-can’t we also have them trained on how to respond to cases of abuse with animals too?

Again, I am appealing to anyone who has some open land-can’t you donate it as a sanctuary for these poor, dumb victims of abuse? There are so many animals who are in homes where they are mercilessly beaten and they have nowhere to go.

A foreigner passed by and saw the bleeding wounds on the donkey and was so upset. There are several foreigners who say that they won’t come back to Guyana because of cruelty to animals, especially the horses and donkeys that are used to pull carts. We are busy trying to pull people to Guyana and are ignoring some of the reasons why people are repulsed by what is happening in this country of ours.

Yours faithfully,

N. Bisnath