…while Guyana burns
Well, well, well: mout’ open and story jump out!! For three years, your Eyewitness has been railing with upraised arms against the ERC for fiddling while Guyana burned – literally and figuratively. Even as they spent over $250 million year after year. Well before, we could SURMISE but now we KNOW! One of the Commissioners – one Roshan Khan – has broken their oath of “omertà”. In case you missed The Godfather trilogy, omertà is the oath of silence taken by members of the mafia about their operations. Breaking the oath means certain death!
Since the ERC is composed of ten representatives of the major Indian and African race groups – plus members of the religious and social groups, it was always expected that debates on specific issues that affected their constituencies would’ve been frank. And possibly contentious. After all, they were representing a rather fractious society – which was the ERC’s raison d’être to begin with! But for years we heard nary a squeak.
We now know it was because their mouths were muzzled by the hand (of the Chairman) that fed them lavishly from the trough of public funds. We’d all wondered how $250 million could be spent within a year – with nothing to show for it. Well, when folks have to be provided with special boots to make a field trip; “risk allowances” to take a flight or receive $200,000 Christmas bonuses, you can begin to appreciate how quickly their budget dwindled. And we’re not even talking about taking care of the staff with $100,000 bonuses!! All of the spending would’ve been directed by the Chairman.
So, how come Commissioner Khan broke his silence? Well, in the wake of the violence on W. Berbice roads instigated by Granger and Harmon when they visited the murdered Henrys’ home, the fella dared to advise those who were the targets of the violence that they should protect themselves. Must’ve been because he is involved in the security business? Well, how dare he?!! Not only did Harmon and the PNC pounce on him for being “racist” – the brutalised victims were all Indian Guyanese – but the Chair of the Commission publicly upbraided him on the same charge!!
So we now hear not only about the extravagant spending but the Chairman taking the side of one (unnamed) Commissioner who leaned towards the PNC. Need any clues? Thought not! But your Eyewitness hopes no one is surprised at the specific partiality of the Chairman. What else could you expect from a man who boasted he was a long-time friend of Granger and invited him as the Chief Guest for his birthday bash.
Which was on March 7 – days after Mingo’s SoPs mangling for Granger with that stained bedsheet!!
A friend indeed!
…and transforming swords
After President Ali made his stirring commitment to create a “Corridor of Unity and Oneness” on the East Coast with the villages of Lusignan, Enterprise, Buxton, Foulis and Golden Grove, your Eyewitness remembered a passage from Isaiah. He paraphrases:
In days to come/ the mountain of the Corridor of Unity and Oneness / shall be established as the highest of aspirations,/ and shall be raised above the fray;/ all the nations shall stream to it.
Many peoples shall come and say,
‘Come, let us go up to the Corridor of Unity,/ to the house of Oneness;/ that they may teach us their ways/ and that we may walk in their paths.’/ For out of the East Coast shall go forth instruction,/ and the word of the message of Oneness.
The Commission shall judge between the ethnic groups,/ and shall arbitrate for many peoples/ they shall beat their swords into ploughshares,/ and their spears into pruning-hooks;/ Groups shall not lift up sword against groups, / neither shall they learn war any more.
…in Cricket no mo’!
After your Eyewitness blearily witnessed the West Indies second victory against Bangladesh – in Tests! – while he’s not yet a “believer”, he’s now keeping an open mind!
That kid Da Silva has “it”!
