Jesuit priest Father Malcolm Rodrigues is suggesting that the government and joint opposition talk directly with the criminal/terrorist group roaming the backlands of Buxton or those connected with the group to find out exactly their problem so as to lessen violence and its repercussions.
In an interview on Thursday, Fr Rodrigues told Stabroek News that if that fails the administration would have a major situation to deal with, possibly, in the long run.
Instead of being magnanimous in trying to find a peaceful solution to the problem which has been festering over the years, he said that the government using “brute force” to see how it could flush out the group would not be the long term solution since like weeds they would spring up elsewhere.
He said, “If you knock down one leader another one will take his place. History has taught us that. They take over the reins of leadership and you don’t stop them that way. How many people over the years have they shot behind Buxton? You sit and write them down and you will see. ‘Fineman’ was not the first one. We had others before `Fineman’. Violence breeds violence and it is the innocent people who are caught in between who are being slaughtered.”
He said that the administration needs to look at the root of the problem, sit with those labelled criminals and terrorists in the interest of the nation and have a real dialogue with them. “I am absolutely sure that the people would support any move like that,” he said adding that, “Ultimately it will benefit everyone.”
This group, he said, clearly wants to draw attention to itself in a big way and the price right now was the murder of 11 innocent people, including men and children at Lusignan.
While some activities might be confined to Buxton, he said that in other places, vandalism is also a way of sending a message.
The fact that a petition has been initiated by Guyanese in the diaspora asking the government to ask the UN to intervene, he said, is clearly what the terrorists/criminals would like because the focus would be them.
He does not believe that any UN intervention should include a UN military force, but some negotiators who would engage those hiding out in the backlands and bring all sides to the table to try to work out how best to proceed on the way forward.
With the reprehensible Lusignan massacre and with no clear solution in mind but force, Fr Rodrigues reiterated that, “We have to engage them to see if a space could be created for them and work towards real unity for the rest of the population. This is something I think the political parties, most probably, have not thought about.”
Guyana, he said, cannot afford to have the two major political parties, the PPP and the PNCR, throwing water and shouting at each other that one must do this and the other must do that.
Those labelled criminals, who feel they do not have a stake in the country, he said are ordinary people who cannot pack their bags and leave because they do not have the means and wherewithal to do so and have therefore joined gangs bent on violence.
Empowerment
While the political solution is empowerment, Fr Rodrigues said that the government seems to be completely unable to control what is happening. The criminal gang clearly realizes the government’s weakness to a certain extent and they would wish that the situation remain as it is.
The opposition, too, are not engaging the government on the issue in a proper way with only the AFC and GAP stating the need to go beyond blaming each other and condemning others instead of finding where the problem lies.
“The problem lies in the voice of young people saying that they are alienated. They are marginalized; that parliament does not speak for them,” he said.
He recalled returning to Guyana from Trinidad and Tobago on February 1, 2006 to be greeted with the headlines of the murder of television host/journalist Ronald Waddell. “I was disappointed that such a thing could happen to him even though some people I know thought that his political opinions were way out. That may be true but I don’t think that was the way to solve a problem like that,” he said.
Since the day of Waddell’s funeral, he remembers that morning encountering a huge number of young people wearing headbands like the gatherings in the Gaza Strip outside the Brickdam Cathedral who felt that he had returned to Guyana for the funeral and indicated that they were glad to see him. When he told them that he had not returned for the funeral but for the general and regional elections to be held later that year, they retorted that the problem was not elections. They said that no one in parliament represents them; that they had no stake here; and that they were going to make theirs.
“They were trying to make it understood that they are not going to put up with marginalisation,” he said adding that he shared that experience with many people, including the donor community, at the time telling them that they must take those young people seriously. He was not saying cancel elections but that those running for office must have a sense that “there is a whole section of the population who feel on the margin of things and unless something is done about it they are going to take their own road and that road might be a violent road. Today, it is sad that I am justified.” Giving an easy example of being on the margins, he said that most mornings while going to say mass at the Ursuline Convent on Camp and Church streets from Brickdam, he sees a number (going into double digits) of young people, mostly young African-Guyanese, sleeping on the pavement.
“Now that is sending a heck of a message to many people like myself, who wonder why so many of our young men are on the streets sleeping rather than being constructively involved in something to make a contribution to the development of the country,” he said.
The political parties never addressed these issues. One was shouting house-to-house registration and verification and the other was saying “no”. These young people must have felt even more alienated with those wanting to be in parliament concerned only with power. There were real issues out there and as yet no one has been brought to justice for the murders of Waddell, the Kaieteur News pressmen, the late minister of agriculture Sash Sawh, and the Agricola massacre, he said.
