…a la Green!
Hamilton Green wrote a long and rambling letter (well…he IS getting on in years, isn’t he?!!) about President Jimmy Carter’s role in our 1992 elections. According to Green, this wasn’t a “free and fair elections” – even though certified by international observers. No, siree Bob! Jimmy Carter was an “agent of regime change” – presumably on behalf of the US Government, which had fully backed his mission!!
According to Green, Carter rigged the election via the PCD, which prepared a voters’ list leaving off PNC supporters’ names. He cited his personal experience with one individual at Enterprise, and said he’d complained to both Elections Commissioner Rudy Collins and GECOM CEO Stanley Singh. Green said Singh — a most partisan holdover from the PNC-controlled Elections Commission — verified his claim. On this anecdotal basis, he concluded the elections were rigged by Carter!!
What he didn’t say was Collins advised him to send any voter alleging their names were left off the list at polling stations to the Elections HQ in G/town. They’d be checked against the Master List and allowed to vote if their claim was valid. What Green also didn’t say was he used the claim of disenfranchisement to bus in hundreds of PNC supporters – a good number of them children, who couldn’t vote in any case — to riot in front of the Elections HQ. They were whipped up by Govt radio broadcasters hysterically transmitting Green’s claims as gospel. Bottles were hurled at the building, smashing most of the windows. The claims of disenfranchisement were later proven to be false!
As Carter wrote later, “It seems that as the disturbance at the Commission grew, some members of the PNC saw an opportunity to disrupt the election and shed doubt on the outcome.” He was inside the building and wrote that the “most personal danger I have felt since leaving the White House was in Guyana in 1992.” Carter called Hoyte to deal with the rioters. Eventually the ex-us President had to call Bill Clinton, the sitting President in Washington, who must’ve read the Riot Act to Hoyte, who then ordered troops to quell the riot.
Green criticised President Hoyte – calling him “the then president” – for rejecting his advice for “dealing with the situation”. Meaning creating riots to cast doubts on the elections as per Carter. Now Hoyte always saw Green as the thug he was, and, of course, right after 1992, he expelled Green. Green’s position, then and always – going all the way back to 1964 — was the PNC should hold on to power BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY!!
It’s clear Granger agrees with this. Green was the first man honoured when he became president!!
Prelude to 2020!!
…a la Nagamootoo
Nagamootoo tried to lambast his bete noir, Opposition Leader Jagdeo, for the latter’s suggestion – that’s all the latter said it was – that maybe the UN could run Guyana’s LGE. He offered as his rationale the element of cost, since GECOM seems to have a black hole in its premises, sucking money into another universe!!
Or some pockets, since some say it’s because of all the thiefin’ going on with radio sets and such like! But your Eyewitness is shocked at Nagamootoo’s declaration: “Except for the “half-hearted” complaint about the General Elections in 2015, there have been no other complaints about irregular elections since 1992.” Really? Was the operation Nagamootoo recently underwent a lobotomy?? Because even though he’s admittedly dim-witted, surely he couldn’t have forgotten the PNC’s rioting in the streets of Georgetown after the 1997 elections??
They even demanded, and got, a forensic inquest after they bludgeoned the PPP, with Nagamootoo as a leading executive member.
Then he suggested joining the PNC. Now he’s there and earning his keep as an attack poodle!!
…a la third force
With all the talk about a “third force” among the chatterati, you’d think they’d have seized the opportunity to get their feet wet in the LGE.
But that would mean mixing with the hoi polloi. The horror!!
