I’m interrupting my analysis of 2020 because of these stories
Kaieteur News – The material to build analyzes of from the year 2020 is literally mountainous. There is so much to assess and reflect on in 2020 that I feel I will do injustice to my readers if I leave some angles untouched. For example, I have yet to highlight the racially charged stuff that Barrington Braithwaite wrote in 2020 as a columnist in the Chronicle.
Braithwaite is a commissioner of the Ethnic Relationship Commission (ERC). He was not called to account by the ERC for his derogation from Major-General Joe Singh. These and other stories, including looking at the ERC in 2020, I will follow up very soon. For now, my analysis focuses on one news item and a published letter.
It has been announced that a new civil society group has been formed called the Civil Society Forum (CSF). Something’s not right here. After the voting count got into difficulties on March 4 at last year’s general election, it dragged on for five months. Within this time one would have expected an abundance of civil society entities to perform four tasks.
These are: 1 – Ensuring the integrity of the electoral process where someone’s right to vote is guaranteed. 2 – Ensure that the electoral commission abides by its constitutional and legal mandate and offers professional conduct to the nation. 3 – Insist that all political stakeholders fulfill their obligations to the nation through transparency and accountability. 4 – Holding all civil and political occupants into civilized behavior that avoids ethnic and political encouragement.
The emergence of a new civil society grouping failed during the five-month period. Now we have the birth of CSF. When you look at its members, alarm bells should start ringing. With the exception of the Catholic Church which expressed a feeling of concern for the election dilemma, the others who make up the grouping did not utter a single word of criticism on five months of election rigging which, in the guises of Guyanese history, is one of the most dangerous moments Guyana.
The CSF electorate includes the Trades Union Congress. Its president is an APNU + AFC senator. His Secretary-General supported rigging the election. Next is Transparency Institute – Guyana chapter. It is one of the most shameless opportunistic organizations to emerge in society. There is Heal Guyana. I do not know who or what that entity is. There is Guyana Election Reform. I suggest that Guyana Election Reform tell us where it was when our right to fight was being deformed. Finally, there is the Interfaith Institute. My advice to young minds interested in saving Guyana is to be careful what message you are listening to and avoid people with a very opportunistic agenda.
Now for the letter. In Stabroek News yesterday, the usual suspects – Danuta and Vanda Radzik, Dr. Allisa Trotz and Karen de Souza are at it again. These four folks would compose a letter every month and then call up personalities they are familiar with and ask them to add their signatures. Then they send it to the newspapers. Every Guyanese in and out of the land who reads the dailies is familiar with this theater club.
So the latest one is a request to the Chancellor of the Judiciary seeking justice for Walter and Donald Rodney. This columnist is an avid admirer of Walter Rodney and is a friend of his brother Donald who I will forever be grateful to for his commitment to me and my wife when the three of us were trapped in my home when the American invasion began from Grenada in 1983. This columnist endorses every word in that letter. But there is a huge strangeness on the face of that stage.
25 people have signed it, many close to Walter Rodney; some knew him very well and many belong to an organization called Friends of the WPA Overseas. But the omissions are worrying and you feel underlying currents. Why would the Radzik sisters, Dr. Trotz and de Souza choose to include close friends of Rodney and omit Rodney’s close comrades?
In the book, Walter Rodney: A Promise of Revolution, it was revealed that Rodney’s three most trusted lieutenants were Rupert Roopnaraine, Eusi Kwayana and Clive Thomas. Edited by Clairmont Chung, the book records Roopnaraine and Thomas describing their strategic relationship with Rodney. Roopnaraine tells readers that it was only when he left Guyana illegally to be in Zimbabwe that Rodney had told Kwayana and Rodney’s wife when he, Rodney, knew that President Burnham would. I always found WPA to be strangers who would one day commit suicide. They have.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)