…and PNC footstools
Another day…another humiliation of Ramjattan and Nagamootoo by the PNC. This time it’s about Winston Felix, standing in for Ramjattan as Minister of Public Security, issuing a directive to the Commissioner of Police to send home the Head of the SWAT team. The fella had been caught apparently transporting bootlegged liquor, and while an investigation was undergoing, he’d been reassigned to ‘A’ Division.
Felix said it wasn’t sending a good message to younger policemen, who might want to stick to the straight and narrow. Nothing wrong with that…but unfortunately, there were at least three other instances when other Police officers who’d also been accused of committing infractions were retaining substantive positions while the investigations unfolded. So why wasn’t the sauce for the goose not the same for the gander??
Felix said in effect that the accusations weren’t of the same nature. One would have thought that Felix, a past COP himself, would have been aware that the “sauce doctrine” has been encoded in the notion of “due process” which undergirds our system of law and order. Of course he does!! But the man caught on tape with the Chairman of the PNC, boasting about heading off the Minister of Home Affairs from the Agricola massacre, clearly was driven then – as he is now – by a POLITICAL agenda!!
And, as such, he’s more concerned about the optics of a PNC Government not coming down like a ton of bricks on a Police officer who clearly wasn’t from the PNC’s constituency. It’s payback time, right Bannus??
And we return to the humiliation of Ramjattan when he returns to his desk. He admits he disagrees with Felix’s decision, and damn well he should. Apart from the violation of Due Process rights of the SWAT head, the Minister of Public security DOESN’T HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO GIVE SUCH AND ORDER TO THE COP!!!
But Ramjattan swallowed hard and said he wasn’t going to do anything. The point is, however: there’s absolutely NOTHING he can do besides swallowing the humble pie. He knew he had absolutely no power in the coalition the moment Immigration and Naturalisation was hived off from his portfolio and given to Felix – contrary to the Cummingsburg Accord – and he could do nothing about it!!
Point is, Ramjattan and Nagamootoo struck what some thought was a “Faustian Bargain” with the PNC on Valentine’s Day 2015. But in that tale, Faust sold out his values and soul to the Devil for some benefit, like power and riches. Ramjattan doesn’t have any real power, and the “riches” are nothing but a mess of pottage compared to the destruction of his reputation.
He’s just “dead meat”!!
…AND BONGO NATION
Decades ago, VS Naipaul castigated his nation, Trinidad, for not taking themselves seriously and making themselves into “bongo islanders” (remember bongo drums for creating that jump-up music?) just for the white tourists to gawk at. Or at best to indulge in “transgressive” behaviour they couldn’t get in their own countries – like grinding down with “natives” who might not be strong “top side”, but were sure in touch with their physicality.
Naipaul concluded: “It indicates how strong and ineradicable the wish is, among the bongo islanders, to act up to the tourist image. . . . England is selling itself, its history, its achievements. Trinidad sells only its ‘picturesqueness,’ its ‘cosmopolitan’ population, and such tourist concepts harden simplicities and ignorance.”
And in the second decade of the 21st century, to celebrate our 52nd year of independence, we’ve decided to import that quintessence of “bongo culture” – Carnival!! This Government can talk all it wants about this being a “private” venture – but look how it was facilitated. And why?? For the same Trini reason:
Making Guyana into a petting zoo for tourists!!
…FOR BARBADOS
Your Eyewitness is surprised at PNC operatives bigging up Mia Mottley’s wipe-out of Freundel Stuart in Barbados.
Didn’t Granger confer Stuart, enemy of Guyanese immigrants, with the OR, Guyana’s second highest National Award, in 2016?
