The crime situation today has its genesis way back in February 1962. However, the recent dossier compiled by the joint opposition, begins only from 1993. This is highly unsatisfactory as it requires a far wider and more comprehensive survey if the problems are to be dealt with effectively. Between 1962 and 1964 attacks on PPP supporters and members of the PYO by mobs sometimes took place in full view of the police, who would do practically nothing to stop the onslaught. On other occasions the police would not arrest the perpetrators, but take the PPP persons who had been attacked into custody instead.
In 1963 I was offered a scholarship to study Electrical Engineering in East Germany by Dr Jagan, which I accepted. When I returned home on holiday in 1965 (the PNC had gained power in 1964), I was arrested by the police, taken to Eve Leary for one night (Old Year’s) and was tortured in an ants nest. I was released on New Year’s Day, and a week later I returned to Germany where I completed my studies.
Editor, my point is that it was from 1962 that the uneasy relationship between PPP supporters in particular, and Indian people in general, with the police was established. Seventeen years on from 1992, and 47 years from 1962, it is most unacceptable that that this situation would still largely exist today. It is the unprecedented corruption we see now, coupled with this mishandling of our security that caused me to leave the PPP in 2006 after an unbroken association of 60 years. However, my leaving the PPP for the AFC does not mean I won’t be critical when it is deserved.
We cannot leave out the past, especially one that still has such a pervasive influence on our present. It is this past that has created the space for a Roger Khan. I must admit too that at that time I was supportive of Roger Khan’s efforts because the situation evoked deeply the feeling of siege, helplessness, and distrust of our police that I had felt 40 years before. I am sure this is how many other people felt too. In the aftermath of 2002, I was at constant loggerheads with my son, Gerhard, who having no memory of the ’60s, could not relate to my emotions. He said that involving Roger Khan could never be justified in any manner, and that international help should have been sought instead. Today, the PPP’s rejection of the $1.6 billion British Security Sector Reform Project shows that they were never interested in international help. Therefore the argument that help would not have been forthcoming in 2002 no longer holds water, and the government’s involvement of Roger Khan can now be seen as a deliberate policy choice, and not out of pure desperation as we would have liked to believe.
Of course this is easier to say now, and when in a desperate situation you do think differently. For example, in 2007, when bandits had their guns pointed on my wife, Brigitte, and youngest daughter, Nadja (who are now in Germany as a result) my first thought was where is Roger Khan? Again, it is my son that constantly reminds me that for the past 17 years the PPP has done very little to improve the security situation, and in many ways has actually made it worse. I will readily admit it is not easy to focus on the truth of the bigger picture, but if we allow our emotions to excuse short-term expedient measures, our security will continue to remain as uncertain as ever in the long term. Please don’t get me wrong in that I am blaming the PPP solely for our unsatisfactory security situation, but the rejection of the British aid was something they did completely on their own. This is even more mind-boggling when we take into account that the PPP says there is still a terrorist mastermind at work from since 2002.
Security was also a main concern of my PPP/Section K Campbellville group which also comprised the late Joseph O’Lall, Bal Persaud, Khemraj Ramjattan and my son, Gerhard. Ramjattan was raked over the coals in 1993 when he made recommendations toward urgent security sector reform, and then at the PPP Congress in Port Mourant in 2002, we were not allowed to speak to express our concerns on security and other matters, such as the removal of Marxism/Leninism from the PPP constitution. At that Congress we barely missed the shooting that left one PYO member dead. If the PPP cannot secure its own Congress how can it secure a nation?
I am also disappointed that the PPP never compiled their own dossier, especially detailing the brutal assassination of Sash Sawh for whom I had great personal respect (the opposition dossier includes it). What is really needed today is a Truth and Reconciliation Commission so that we can collectively purge ourselves of the past. This was done successfully in South Africa that had a longer, more sordid past. While for Guyana there is the problem of so many living abroad and many others now deceased, there are still enough of us around to get somewhere. Our consulates and embassies abroad can also be used to get information from non-resident Guyanese.
It is thoroughly heartbreaking too that because of the present PPP, Dr Jagan’s legacy is being rent asunder and as a result, revisionists have a louder voice and a more willing audience. The West On Trial must stand, and our hero should always be Dr Jagan, and not Roger Khan! I am appalled too that torture is flourishing once again under the present PPP. The sacrifices I made in my struggle were not for the PPP to govern Guyana similarly to the PNC, and not for it to be done unto others as was done unto me.
Yours faithfully,
Boyo Ramsaroop
