Dear Editor,
In the bloody aftermath of the Lusignan executions, the question must be asked: why Lusignan?
I make a start by identifying what Lusignan was not. It was not an accidental site; it was not because of convenience; it was not for retaliation or revenge. Moreover, it has none of the entrepreneurial class; it is not moneyed; it is not a safe harbour. And most of all-and from every indication-Lusignan was not at all about a missing and presumed kidnapped teenager. If it is not any or all of this: then why Lusignan?
It is that this deliberate and calculated cleansing came about for one reason and one reason only: the presence of Indians. If this is so, again, why? Because a message was delivered, it was easy pickings, and there were limited resistance concerns. There existed the knowledge that, whatever occurred during this savage interlude, there would only be the usual caravan of politicians, speeches, and temporary hand wringing. Then, back to business as if nothing had happened.
Rightly or wrongly, and whether by design or accident, the perpetrators-be they criminals, gangsters, freedom fighters-have come to see themselves as representative of the resistance of conscience, as manifested in the rebellion of footpaths, on behalf of the oppressed, through the irrefutable logic of guns. It is an action nurtured in anger that converts criminals to heroes; that martyrs innocents; that confronts marginalization; that opposes the reality of phantoms; and exposes the irrelevance of a limited government. In Lusignan anger breached its extreme periphery and spewed hate; hate in its ugliest and vilest forms.
It is an anger (and hate) that makes believers of the bent; that inflames the virulence of the extremist; and dissipates the inclinations of the moderate. Anger-maybe unrighteous, even misplaced-deadly to those dispatched. An anger that crests into a wanton killing rage, and all too easily released in automatic arcs of scything destruction.
Lusignan was not an accident. It could just as easily have been Enmore or Annandale, and, perhaps, more destructively. And almost identically, the aftermath would have been the onrushing, self-serving rulers. Some already bloated with visions of presidential years hence, but impotent in the face of today and the tomorrows and Lusignans ahead.
They ignore and dismiss the perils of the Lusignans, safe in the comfort that the killers are self-preserving enough to avoid their haciendas with its sensors and electronics, and the guards with their guns. Instead they bray ceaselessly about democracy; and about our turn which has come to mean the insulation and elevation of the power clique, and which means the exposure and degradation of the poor and weak. The mighty make speeches from castles secure, the people make coffins amidst the tatters of bloodied places of final rest.
And still the rulers refuse to listen or to recognize the uncomfortable truths conveyed by the unspeakable horror that .was Lusignan. Those uncomfortable truths will be visited in my final commentary later.
Yours faithfully,
G H K Lall