Dear Editor,
Your news article, ‘Baishanlin building huge watercraft at Moblissa – no sign of processing facilities,’ (September 8), was yet another confirmation of the extent to which Baishanlin has gone in its forestry operations using a 2007-issued ‘exploratory permit,’ which was supposed to allow for limited types of forestry operation and is different from an actual licence to operate forestry concessions.
Considering Baishanlin has illegally acquired another Chinese logging company, Jailing, and is alleged to have engaged in illegal ‘landlording’ concessionary arrangements with other logging companies, without interventions by or even permission from the government, I honestly don’t know if there is anything that anybody in Guyana can do legally to stop Baishanlin, even if temporarily, because it is obvious that the company is operating at the pleasure of the PPP regime, which no one or institution in Guyana also appears capable of stopping from being corrupt and openly lawless.
Back on April 17, 2013, Kaieteur News carried a news article, ‘Baishanlin refuses to sign GGMC “cease order,”’ with two accompanying photographs, in which it was reported Baishanlin “blatantly refused to sign a ‘cease order’ by the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC), and prepared by Geologist and Mines Officer, Mr Rickford Vieira, while workers attached to the entity flagrantly continued excavation works in the Moblissa area.”
The article continued, “They were working even though no permit was granted for such activities to be carried out in the first place, and the entity was given at least three cease orders, according to reports” and “Chairman of Region 10, Sharma Solomon, expressed concern over the manner in which Baishanlin had chosen to conduct its business. Solomon said that the Baishanlin programme commenced late last year, subsequent to a request from the chairman of the Forestry Commission, who asked the Region to ‘allow and entertain them.’”
So, there we have a retrospective synopsis of the origin of what SN is now referring to as Baishanlin building a huge watercraft at Moblissa, which pinpoints the role of the Chairman of the Guyana Forestry Commission in Baishanlin’s questionable rise in Guyana’s forests, and why Baishanlin not only ignores our rules, regulations and laws – which it claims it complies with – but why it converts permission to do one thing, into doing something else. The same explains why it has an exploratory forestry permit but behaves as it if has a licence to engage in exporting logs.
Editor, we are literally witnessing executive lawlessness that sanctions lawlessness by a foreign entity and there is no real effort to stop any of it. APNU’s Granger is meeting with the President to discuss routine government matters and then meeting with the Chinese Ambassador in the wake of the startling reports of illegal exploitation of our forests, while the nation reads all of that to mean APNU does not see what the media see, so something must be wrong with the media. Nothing that is wrong challenges us to fight for change.
In fact, APNU continues to be more focused on fighting for shared governance than fighting to stop the government’s daring excesses, which is causing observers to conclude that APNU is more interested in sharing the spoils with the PPP. Even Mr Christopher Ram’s letter in SN, ‘Mr Granger did not use the opportunity to ask searching and relevant questions of the Chinese Ambassador,’ (September 8), succinctly captured the true essence of APNU’s don’t rock-the-boat politics, which explains why the PPP regime can so bravely and blatantly continue doing what it wants. Ironically, Mr Ram’s letter got scolded by APNU bloggers for daring to ask the questions he did. Have we really allowed our partisanship to prevent us from seeing what we are supposed to be about as a people?
One can only wonder what would have been the state of Guyana today had it not been for the private media fighting tooth and nail as the so-called Fourth Estate in the interests of the country, which is why the AFC has to seize on the private media revelations and continue emerging as the party that will fight like the real little David against today’s political version of the Goliaths, who are fighting for the right to share power instead of fighting to save the people and their patrimony.
Hopefully, Guyanese will continue to wake up and realize that there is not really much daylight between the PPP and APNU/PNC, and decide that if elections are held, they will vote for a party that will demand accountability, as the little AFC – flaws and all – has proven it is willing to fight for. This does not mean that the PPP cannot throw a monkey wrench into the elections works and invite APNU/PNC to share power in order to retain its own hold on power, but even so, the AFC has to stay the course as the third alternative that will hold the PPP and APNU/PNC accountable.
In a nutshell, everyone has a choice in the weeks and months ahead of where they want to see Guyana go and how we intend to get there. But if there is one issue that has crystallized what is so wrong with the PPP regime today, and makes a vote for change necessary, it has to be the activities of Chinese nationals, but especially Baishanlin’s highly questionable operations in Guyana. Unfortunately, what has crystallized what is so wrong with APNU/PNCR, has to be its propensity for putting power-sharing over protecting people and their sovereignty.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin
