…they forget Oct 5
Your Eyewitness deliberately played possum on October 5 to see what was going to be the coverage of probably the most important post-independence date – when democracy was returned to Guyana. And what a disappointment it was…there was nothing…nada…nil…in each of the dailies – excepting this one!!
Exactly what’s going on? Are memories so short? After all, we’re told the life expectancy in our dear land of Guyana is now 66+ years – up from 60 where it was stuck during the PNC 28 years! So there has to be scads of folks who remember the days (and nights) of the Burnhamite dictatorship and celebrated on October 5, 1992. Or is it, they’ve all repressed the memories because they were so painful?
What your Eyewitness thinks is there’s a whole lotta folks out there who’re very embarrassed about how they removed the PPP in 2015 and are now staring into the abyss of a return to the days of the PNC dictatorship. Their perfidy weighs too heavily on their consciences!! Now the PPP weren’t angels…but then, there was that founding member of democratic government who said if men were angels, we wouldn’t need governments!
But whatever their faults and foibles, they did move Guyana ahead by every metric that’s used to measure these things, didn’t they? How do we count the improvements? There’s that rise in life expectancy mentioned above. Have people forgotten things were so bad under the PNC, we had to’ve been the drabbest country on planet Earth, since we couldn’t even afford to import paint!
Jagdeo did persuade the world to write off the PNC’s US$2.1 billion debt that was a millstone on our national neck. We did move from Highly Indebted Poor Country to High Middle Income Country. The poverty levels dipped most significantly from the 43 per cent in 1992. Health-wise, have folks really forgotten rats were gnawing the toes of newborn babies at GHPC before 1992?
But it’s more than passing strange the PPP also didn’t toot their horns louder. After all, if we go by the revisionist accounts flooding the country from the State-owned media and their handmaiden, you’d actually believe the PPP left the country in a worse shape that they found it in 1992!! The PPP should not allow the Goebbels’ doctrine employed by the PNC (“Tell a lie often enough and pretty soon everyone will believe it’s the truth.”) to corrupt the memory of our youths who may not have lived through the PNC years.
The old saw – those who forget the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them – like all “old saws” have a solid kernel of truth.
October 5 must not be forgotten!!
…they forget the border controversy
Lincoln Lewis was given a column in the Chronic to vent his spleen. Maybe it’s because he has so many interests – ranging from feudal landownership to African-Guyanese pension funds and the Guyana Constitution – he can write about.
Last week, he exposed yet another facet of his polymathic abilities. He announced he wasn’t pleased the Government was pushing for the border controversy to be taken to the World Court. He wants some clarification. Well, does he read the Chronic?
There it was, our Foreign Minister Greenidge had answered his question: “That is a controversy over a status of an award, it is not about whether the border should be here or there. The 1966 Agreement only said that these two countries will talk with a view to settling, and if they don’t talk, and don’t settle, we will go to an option on the UN menu from Article 33 of the UN Treaty.”
Time for talk is over!! Remove the Sword of the Bolivarians!!
…they forget the “toothless poodle”
It used to be the GECOM Chair had to be a Judge. It was expanded to include other “fit and proper persons”, because the last Judge-Chair was a “toothless poodle” who allowed blatant rigging.
That’s why we’re back to “Judge only”?
