Dear Editor,
I wish to convey my most sincere condolences to the families, friends and relatives of the men, women and children who were brutally massacred at Lusignan on Saturday, January 26, 2008. Life for the surviving ones would never be the same again.
The PPP government has, in its usual performance since 2002, betrayed that sacred trust reposed in them by the East Indians in the country, in general, and on the East Coast, in particular. This trust was expressed when the electorate chose the PPP to adjudicate in the governance of this nation. This solemn trust was to provide them the kind of protection against the atrocities, like that of the Lusignan massacre, that have been meted out to them since the prisoners great escape of 2002. On each of the many occasions that the East Indians were murdered, violated and plundered, the government in its usual fashion would say it has a plan, would extend sympathy, would provide for funeral expenses, would commiserate with them, and then life moves on as if nothing has happened, until another similar tragedy occurs.
This time at Lusignan the government were hounded by the villagers simply because they were found guilty of betraying that solemn trust. The President threw up his hands in despair, and rather than articulating strategic, viable solutions, asked the aggrieved and distressed community, in his meeting with them in the aftermath of the massacre, to find an answer to the current security dilemma. The most ludicrous solution was suggested by the President, and that is to intensify the community policing or the so-called vigilante groups. What utter nonsense from a Head of State! In this solution the armed forces would sleep in their barracks, and the ordinary citizens would work tirelessly during the day, and be vigilant whilst being armed with sticks and cutlasses in the night to fight the might of the M16s and AK47s. This is the government’s plan to rid the country of hard-line, armed and trained insurgents and terrorists.
The biggest hypocrisy took place at the funeral on Thursday, January 31 by the Prime Minister when he said “we are all wounded, painfully wounded, but we are not defeated,” adding that “it was a testing time”, “but we have survived so far”. It was pure hypocrisy to say “we are all wounded”, when the government hasn’t done anything to assert that it was part of the people to help them find peace and solitude in their own humble abode. It became the “we” because it realizes how deeply it was ostracized by the same people whom it vowed to protect in exchange for their votes in 1992, 1997, 2001, and 2006. It’s a shame for the Prime Minister to say that “we are painfully wounded”, when it was sheer pretence that the government feels the wounds being inflicted on the innocent citizens.
What “testing time” is the Prime Minister referring to? Is the brutal slaughter of 11 persons that includes 5 children in the midst of their sleep a litmus test for the government to know the strength and resilience of the insurgency? Further, what does the Prime Minister meant that “we have survived so far?” Is it the survival of the government despite all the follies, betrayal, failures and mismanagement?
Mr. Editor, I wish to assure you that the average home on the lower east coast knows no peace since the Lusignan massacre. The tension, fear and insecurity are rife; as never before. The government on the other hand is hoping as usual that life would continue as if nothing ever happened, hoping that the people would forget that there ever was a Lusignan massacre, hoping that at the next election campaign jamboree in 2011 at the Lusignan Cricket Ground it would be with the same pomp and celebration amidst the customary gyrating music, singing heartily, with a resounding hurrah “we have survived so far.” What hypocrisy!!
This is the government of the 21st century.
Yours faithfully,
Jag Mohan Bhimalsammy
