…dead or alive
Now that one of the four escaped bandits, Uree Varswyk, was shot dead after the police pounced upon him and his fellow escapee Mark Royden Williams up in Linden, does that mean someone will be collecting half of the $10 million rewards that was promised for their capture? The police, after all, did admit they it was “members of the public” who provided the info on the bandits’ lair. And it wasn’t these public-spirited citizens’ fault Williams got away.
But your Eyewitness wants to know how come no one spied these bandits before now? Are these fellas so adept in the art of disguise, they can transform themselves like chameleons to just flit-by folks? Your Eyewitness thinks not.
There are people in this country who’re willing to aid and abet known killers like Varswyck and Williams because they believe some weird narrative of Guyanese society’s “role” in creating such psychopaths. And only a psychopath would cold-bloodedly murder that Sterling guard like Varswyck did or those TWENTY-EIGHT men, women and children Williams had a hand in murdering at Bartica and Lusignan.
You’re hearing this narrative once again after a lull – since most of the gangs that held this nation hostage between 2000-2008 were wiped out. In that period, because claims of “marginalisation” these psychopaths could claim to be “freedom fighters” and have large swathes of citizens offer them succour and comfort, as they broke out of Buxton and traversed the country freely. They were able to access “safe houses” and protection at will from the East Coast.
That network that glorified the psychopaths couldn’t have just disappeared. They’re real live persons like those Russian “sleepers” we used to read about during the Cold War, waiting to be “activated”. Now some of you may think your Eyewitness has succumbed to the “conspiracy” bug, but really, if the 2002 breakout from Camp St was planned and executed by “political sophisticates” from the outside, why not the 2017 breakout?
Varwyck was shot wearing full GDF Battle gear, but he wasn’t GDF was he? He was an ex-Police TSU trainer. Where did he get the GDF battle gear? Where did he get all that firepower? And more to the point, what was it he and Williams were about to do? One can only presume that the latter also was similarly outfitted. Surely, they didn’t sit around all day (and night) in full battle gear just discussing the mining challenges in Region 10?
That region was recently “bigged up” as the most militant in Guyana after noted elements illegally blocked bridges and burn down government property back in 2012.
Was that “militancy” (or psychopathology) about to explode onto Guyana?
…real Indigenous heritage
Now that we’re celebrating “Amerindian Heritage Month”, shouldn’t we be getting serious about that heritage? Your Eyewitness has frankly had it up to his throat with the grass skirts, cassava bread and piwari being exhibited for decades now as defining “Amerindian heritage”. Of course, these products of Indigenous Peoples are aspects of their culture and heritage, but surely like all cultures they also had practices and perspectives that go beyond those products.
What about their world view that encompassed their environment as part and parcel of their own lives and which was to be cared for and not exploited and destroyed as it is presently? Or do we still want to dismiss such world views as “animism” and pretend that the hegemonized beliefs imposed on them by the Europeans are all they’ve ever produced.
In this age when the world’s facing the cataclysm of global warming and all its consequences, shouldn’t we unearth REAL Indigenous Heritage that can help us survive?
Or do we still want to infantilise the Indigenous peoples?
…some action from COI’s
In Guyana, if it’s “another day, it’s another COI”. So now the one into the power struggle at the top of the Police Force is completed, what will be Inquired into next?
Why no animals in the zoo?
