Dear Editor,
There have been many justified calls from opinion-makers for the PNC to apologise for its share in the deformation of the state. In any case the PNC-headed state of many years ago is being X-rayed at this moment before a worldwide audience.
Regardless of the final outcome there will be a major list of allegations, not a complete one against a party that once ruled and as some of us have “truthfully alleged” run riot at home. Many Guyanese with a focus on today, want to know why the present government is not being investigated.
Attorney General Anil Nandall, without intending to, has confirmed in a now public conversation that the people’s concerns are well founded. I have noted that the matter is now before the court to be heard by a judge, without a jury likely to be influenced by public comment.
The Attorney General spoke as if he had been warned that if the Kaieteur News did not change its tune some powerful people could launch an armed attack on its nerve centre with the aim of ending its freedom of expression. Does he, a member of government, really have knowledge of people with assault weapons capable of such an attack, not the first of that kind on Kaieteur News? In his free proclamation the AG would have said whether he had alerted his colleague, the Minister of Home Affairs, or the Commissioner of Police. Then he had accused Mr Nigel Hughes of inciting violence at Agricola, and he had done so with Ms Teixeira on public television, not by telephone.
I leave the question of privacy to lawyers. My present position is that the AG knew he was talking to a reporter. Nowhere in his conversation do I see a request to keep parts of it “off the record.” Knowing that he is big news in town, he could easily have made it clear to the reporter that he did not wish to be quoted.
Political elites do not know that the average Guyanese can read their body language through hearing them or seeing their words in print. To his credit, when aggrieved, the Attorney General moved to the courts. All of this gun talk falls under considerations of public order and levels of public safety and security.
The Attorney General and Minister of Legal Affairs showed undue interest in the identity of the female reporter who had accompanied the senior reporter. The AG knew and repeated the reason for the third party’s interest in the female staff member, to have a go at her body. Yet he pursued her identity. The senior reporter acted with decency and did not reveal his female colleague’s name.
I see here a situation in which women in the workplace are more and more exposed to men with money and power, both in private and in government employment. These men know the gap between salary scales enforced by their class and the cost of the women’s aspirations for just the bare necessities of a modest lifestyle.
In my efforts through ASCRIA against corruption from the late1960s, I described in my affidavit the acts of two PNC ministers, one African and one Indian, as “common theft.” If the reports of what the AG said about himself are correct, that description applies to his admission. He described himself as a rich man. Yet he knowingly used government funds for a household purpose stated by him, and paid back to preempt exposure in the Kaieteur News. How does a minister, who cannot be an accounting officer, get his hands on government money? Does the Attorney General understand what he has told the public? A minister cannot take government money alone. With his wealth a bank loan would be much simpler than what he contrived. Mr Nandall has accused himself. And what about his supporters? My grandparents and my mother used to say, “The upholder is worse than the thief.” Dr Arif Bulkan long ago pointed out the absence of privacy provisions in the constitution. The maximum leaders ignored his informed caution.
I leave aside as private the question of how respectful it is to use tainted money for a loved one. Is that ‘high breed’ love? The flaunting of his high breed and ethnic superiority by an Attorney General of Guyana speaks for itself. Does anyone still want to argue in favour of some kind of racial morality?
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
