Dear Editor,
Like most Guyanese at home and abroad, I was shocked numb when I read your news story, ‘Jagdeo attacks Granger, Trotman,’ (March 9), and while the attack on the AFC’s Raphael Trotman does not really make political hay seeing he is not on his party’s presidential ticket, it is the President’s diatribe against Mr Granger that has piqued my interest.
For the President to say the PNCR nominee is characterized by repression and that he has “blood on his hands” from the Forbes Burnham era, is almost the equivalent of any Guyanese saying the Jagdeo era has been characterized by its own version of repression and has lots of blood on its hands for the more than 200 unsolved murders that happened in the last nine years. I want to challenge the President or anyone out there who has credible proof that Mr Granger literally stuffed fake ballots in boxes or tampered with ballot boxes after Election Day polls were closed during the Burnham era, to produce their evidence.
Retired Major-General Joe Singh was, at one time, also a subordinate under orders until he was called on to head up the PPP-reviled National Service and then the punching bag GDF under the PNC government. But has anyone in the PPP or its government ever characterized Mr Singh as being part of the repressive PNC regime? No.
In fact, the PPP government never even objected to Mr Singh becoming Chairman of Gecom, nor did it ever raise his military past when it recently tapped him to become Chairman of the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission. There was never any of the mudslinging, which makes me now ask if the attack on Mr Granger is aimed at establishing a Burnham-Granger link to stoke insecurity as memories of rigged elections are conveniently dug up.
Not that I do not share the widespread belief that the PNC did rig elections, but when it comes to fingering a particular person as being involved in the rigging process, this places the burden of responsibility on the accusers to produce either direct or compelling circumstantial evidence. Editor, I could never excuse election rigging, especially given the spiralling decline of our country’s social and economic standing under Burnham, but I would have to apologize to Burnham and the PNC if I did not repeatedly body-slam this PPP administration for its corruption, after the PPP spent 28 years condemning the PNC for election-rigging and corruption. For the record, let me say right now that I am not writing as a supporter of Mr Granger, but as a Guyanese who believes that after all the political distrust we have been through under the PPP and PNC, we need to have credible candidates who can pass the smell test of public trust before attempting to lead this country. But if we are going to make the cardinal mistake of eliminating a candidate based on the ‘guilt by association syndrome,’ then this means that whoever is the PPP candidate must be considered for elimination because of his or her association with the Caribbean’s most corrupt government that engages in authoritarian behaviour.
And the latter observation is what the President, known for ‘busing down’ and ‘cussing out,’ should have taken into account when he started frothing at the mouth about Mr Granger’s past as an army officer. During the 1973 elections, he was nine years old, so unless someone told him something then he has absolutely nothing substantive on Mr Granger.
In 2006, he also pulled a fear-inducing stroke when he told PPP supporters at Babu John that if the PNC got back in power criminals would have easy access to guns. It turns out that only last week we learned that crimes, including gun-related ones, are on the upsurge and the PPP, not the PNC, is in power. And this is the same man who once promised to show us a videotape of Buxton criminals mingling freely with PNC officials, and who also swore three times to uphold the Constitution of Guyana.
Editor, after all the pillorying and grilling of Mr Granger for his association with the Burnham regime, I hope the PPP presidential candidate gets pilloried and grilled on his or her association with this PPP government known for corruption and the human rights abuses which occurred on its watch. The PPP and its government no longer have that moral edge over the PNC.
Hopefully, though, the pillorying and grilling will not define the entire campaign, and some space is set aside for candidates to focus on issues germane to the country’s future well-being. God knows we are right back where we were in 1992 clamouring for a change of government.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
