Editorial

It would not have escaped the attention of careful observers that President Donald Ramotar’s promise of a highly educated work force, made to investors at last Thursday’s ceremony to mark the opening of Qualfon’s East Bank operations, came a matter of weeks before his government seeks to be returned to office at the May 11 general elections.

On March 10, political activist Courtney Crum-Ewing was gunned down in the Diamond Housing Scheme as he used a bullhorn to urge people to vote against the ruling party at the upcoming elections.

Nomination Day is on April 7, and according to what has been said by both acting Town Clerk Carol Sooba and Chief Election Officer Keith Lowenfield, it will be held at the traditional venue, namely, City Hall.

A recent article in Le Monde reports on growing scepticism within the medical community as to the value of using mice to test drugs that will later be used on humans.

Following on from last Friday’s editorial focus on corruption in Latin America, we believe that it would be clear to most people that, although many things have changed for the better in Latin America in the last few decades, profound problems of democracy and governance remain.

“Do you remember the days of slavery?” Jamaican Roots Reggae artist Burning Spear asks in his 1975 song ‘Slavery Days’.

The death of Lee Kuan Yew, former long-serving Prime Minister of Singapore, is of significance for the Caribbean if only for the reason that he first attained office at about the same time as many of the original democratically elected leaders of the countries of this Region, constituted largely of very small states, also commenced their periods of governance.

Those of us in the Caribbean who sat through the early hours of Saturday morning to watch the last of the four quarter finals in this year’s Cricket World Cup Tournament knew only too well that the outcome that we wanted, had hoped for, could come only through some miracle or else on the back of a West Indies performance on the field that rose head and shoulders above the mediocrity which had characterized the team’s ungainly entry into the quarter finals stage of the competition.

After maintaining public silence for more than three years, former President Jagdeo seized the centre stage earlier this month, first at Babu Jaan on March 8th in a widely reviled presentation and then on March 10th at a hastily convened press conference at Freedom House where he sought to defend his actions but only succeeded in stirring up animosities over his remarks about the Jagans.

This time former President Bharrat Jagdeo has really stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Despite spirited protests against the slaughter of 23 people at the Bardo Museum in Tunisia, the likely collapse of tourism in the country, following the murder of so many foreigners (the 20 tourists among the dead included five Japanese, four Italians, two Colombians, two Spaniards and citizens from Australia, Britain, France and Poland), is a chilling reminder of how abruptly a single act of terror can strike at the heart of a modern economy.

Our editorial on Wednesday (South American turbulence) focused specifically on the political and economic problems of Brazil and Venezuela, as cause for concern in Guyana and Caricom as a whole.

The Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) is placing emphasis on reducing salt intake starting with children as the world observes ‘Salt Awareness Week’ which ends on Sunday.

The increasing turbulence in both Brazil and Venezuela in South America must be of concern for Guyana and indeed the countries of Caricom.

Much of the public response to the arrival by APNU and the AFC at an agreement that the two will contest the May 11 general elections as a coalition has had to do with the recurring theme of change, transformation that goes beyond simply the replacing of one political party in office with another; one that has the far greater, more worthwhile ambition of replacing an old and debilitating political order.

Does President Ramotar believe that the laying out of 15 measures for the security sector two months before general elections will assuage the concerns of the public about safety?

Last Tuesday evening, Courtney Crum-Ewing was walking the streets of Diamond with his bullhorn urging people to go to the polls on May 11 and vote out the government, when around 8 pm, gunshots rang out, and he slumped lifeless to the ground.

In 1993, General Krishnaswamy Sundarji, former Chief of the Indian General Staff, published an account of the simmering military tensions between India and Pakistan.

“There have to be changes. Our one-day cricket has been very poor for 12 months.

If it were not so serious, it would be laughable that it took the intervention of the PPP/C’s campaign spin doctor, former president Bharrat Jagdeo, to offer the people of Guyana a backhanded apology for the shameless medical benefits package for government ministers in the assurance he offered on Tuesday that the practice would be changed.