Dear Editor,
Maybe three or four years ago, President Bharrat Jagdeo invited Guyanese to join him in a national conversation on national issues. But even before then, Guyanese were already doing so in the letter columns, even if not with him, at least among ourselves.
Unfortunately, the state-owned Guyana Chronicle is the only local daily tabloid that has not kept faith with the President’s invitation, having decided a long time ago that it will not publish letters that are critical of the PPP, its regime or the President. And that explains why its letter columns are always stacked with letters complimentary of the ruling party, the regime or the President, or with letters that focus on less politically sensitive issues.
Two of the Chronicle’s prominent pro-government letter writers, Kimberly James and Alicia Martin, whether real or ghost writers I know not, were given prominent column space to vent against me (Guyana Chronicle, Tuesday, January 22) because I said the government has a credibility crisis of its own even as it tries to make a case against the PNC on the army-issued weapons.
But because the Chronicle’s editor has previously dumped many of my letters in the past, I’ll stick with my tried and proven public-friendly free media outlets. Thanks for continuing to be fair and balanced, sir.
Now, since James and Martin seem to enjoy an ‘inside’ relationship with the ruling party and or its government, I want to ask them to furnish us with information on the circumstances surrounding the Good Hope Trio who were intercepted with a cache of weapons and a high-powered telephone eavesdropping device.
It is only fair and acceptable that if the government is going to probe the matter of weapons issued by the army to the PNC regime thirty-something years ago, it also investigates how Roger Khan and his cohorts came to be in possession of the telephone eavesdropping/recording device they were caught travelling with a couple of years ago.
Here are some questions James and Martin could use to guide them in getting the right answers for us so we can debate further whether the PPP regime really has a credibility problem.
First, how did the telephone eavesdropping/recording device enter into Guyana? Here, we want to know if it was imported by the government or by a private citizen; the most practical reason for importing it, and the date of its importation.
Second, who currently owns or is in possession of the device? Here, we want to know, after the device was seized by the GDF’s Intelligence Unit and turned over to the police, and after the court case against Khan and his pals was dismissed, who now has actual jurisdiction/responsibility for its safekeeping.
Third, who in the government issued the device to Roger Khan and his pals? Here we want to know, if the item was definitely government’s property, what sort of relationship existed between the authorized issuer and the recipient prior to and during the handing over of the device.. It must also be noted that a government-appointed commission cleared the Home Affairs Minister of involvement with the Phantom Squad, but someone in government or the police force had to be involved in this handing over.
Fourth, what was the actual motive for handing over such a powerful device to a non-government functionary or agent? Here, we want to know if the authorized issuer conspired to allow the recipient to illegally use the device to record phone conversations of high-profile public figures, including former top cop, Winston Felix and a prominent top PNC official.
Finally, in light of Khan’s confessed role in the Phantom Squad killings, and especially his revelation that he used police officers on the force’s payroll, did the then Home Affairs Minister and the then acting top cop who had his retirement date pushed back by one year for whatever reason – knowingly allow these ‘rogue cops’ to use their state-issued weapons to carry out their extra-judicial killings?
I look forward to reading the answers to the foregoing questions, but in the meantime, I hope that somewhere in the answers provided by James and Martin they will see why I said the PPP and its government have lost credibility over an incident as recent as three years ago, even as they promised go after the PNC for an incident that pre-dated the death of Forbes Burnham in 1985.
Yours faithfully,
Emile Mervin