Dear Editor,
Some in their grief and agony after the horrible carnage at Lusignan called for the return of Roger Khan and Ronald Gajraj. To them understandably that would be the solution. President Jagdeo after declaring that no one man can solve the problem explained that Roger Khan is on trial in the U.S. for drug trafficking. Then someone (planted by the opposition?) shouted that if Jagdeo can’t protect Indians perhaps we should give Corbin and the PNC a chance at the helm. Never one to pass up an opportunity to gain political points even under such tragic circumstances, Jagdeo put the question to the crowd “do you want the PNC in power?” He would no doubt have been shocked if he had gotten any other answer than the resounding “no”. Feeling now secure in his job for at least another few years, he spews some empty rhetoric at the man about being free to vote for the leader and party of his choice, knowing fully well that as long as the voting pattern in Guyana continues the way it is no other party than the Indian dominated PPP will ever be in power.
What the president did not explain to the first man was that bringing back Roger and Ronald, would be applying more of the old solution to the same problem and that what this man and the good people of Lusignan are grieving today is evidence that the old Roger Khan and Ronald Gajraj solution did not work. In fact this tragedy is a result of the solutions Khan and Gajraj applied back then. Their solutions merely shifted the problem from one part of the country to another. This shifting went largely undetected simply because the initial solvers (Khan and Gajraj) were no longer on the scene and new people (Rohee, etc.) inherited the problem. I hope that Mr Rohee and the present group now in charge of solving the problem don’t think with the same old mindset of the man calling for the return of Roger and Ronald because what this man is really calling for is “a bigger hammer”, i.e., more soldiers, more police, more gunfire, more violence. While the killers need to be apprehended as quickly as possible, we don’t need more of the same.
We don’t need outside help either. Outside help will not solve Guyana’s fundamental problem. It will only leave Guyana weaker than before and more in need of further help from outside. The short-term improvement that outside help would bring will only lead to long-term dependency. The victims of this tragedy were Guyanese and the perpetrators are Guyanese therefore this is a Guyanese problem and must be worked on by Guyanese. This is what independence means, the ability to work out your own problems. The immediate problem is finding a way to translate this language of violence that we hear from both sides of the tragedy into a language of dialogue.
If there is an insurgency in Guyana then this is a serious problem because insurgencies have a cause, and having a cause, they tend to draw recruits who are attracted to that cause. Insurgents usually want something from the state. Something they feel the state is depriving them of and because of this deprivation they see the state as their enemy. “Why Lusignan?” some ask. The answer is that apparently they see Lusignan as being populated by supporters of the enemy and a strike there is an attack on the enemy. In a social system as Guyana, like in any other system, the cure lies in your relationship with your enemy. This is going to be a hard pill to swallow, but capturing the leader or leaders of this insurgency alive is imperative to solving this problem.
Yours faithfully,
Stafford Wills
