Dear Editor,
Dr Luncheon’s rejection of the proposal from Rev Malcolm Rodrigues is disappointing and is one the public might have expected from the gunmen. In brief, it is the response of warmongers, those who can look on at leisure until they crush the other side.
I write as one who, like Luncheon, can see no justification, repeat, no justification for the Lusignan massacre. But I did not hear Luncheon’s agony over the torture of the two young men from Buxton, Patrick Sumner and Victor Jones. When we are silent at lesser crimes, greater ones blow up on our side.
I am in the position of attempting to save lives on both sides I have so far filed private prosecutions against the policeman who allegedly killed Shawn Nedd and the officer who allegedly killed Shaka Blair. In both cases the DPP denied me the course of justice. I prosecuted a PPP activist found with a cache of high-powered weapons in his home at Enmore after SN reported the news in December 1997.
I have not since 2001, in the climate of violence, raised the issue of marginalization, although I can write a book about it. I attacked the gunmen at the first use of weapons against unarmed, peaceful citizens.
On the proposal from Rev Malcolm Rodrigues, not an opposition figure, the government is too blind with authority to see pointers to change. . I repeat that I personally regard Mr. Hinckson’s offer as significant.
Both sides of the confrontation have lost lives. That should encourage Peace.
Neither side is gaining ground, it seems.
That should advise Peace.
On both sides women have fallen; women have been violated. Children have been denied development and held hostage. That should counsel Peace.
The drug sector is enjoying the unrest. That should urge Peace.
The killing of mothers from Donna McKinnon to Donna Herod and Dhanwajie, the endless executions on both sides, the massacre of children should impose Peace.
If Dr Luncheon looks carefully he will see that hostages abound and are not at all absent from the picture. Large umbers are held hostage in their own homes.
It is not surprising that the government will call on the gunmen to surrender.
Then it will have to take their answer, or their counter proposals. There is no pre-set way. The peace keeping manuals change, from time to time, and place to place, I suppose..
Guyana has experts working in these fields.
Does the public know that the East Coast Demerara villages up to Ann’s Grove are an average of seven miles deep?
The present bulldozing is an attempt to satisfy party supporters, or deceive them into believing that something is being done. Is it given out on contract? Will permanent crops be bulldozed ? The plan has no relation to reality, so far as the gunmen are concerned.
I hope machines will be ready at a time when water control conditions are achieved and guns are out of the way to encourage cultivation of large sections of the farm lands. by more and more villagers. That will be good news. Between 1992, the return of “democracy’ , and 2007 nothing like this happened. In fact agriculture, except in sugar cane, declined during the previous regime.
Here is the key to the argument that bulldozing will embarrass the gunmen. It seems that the government and others believe that gunmen have lived in the backlands for years and kept their arms and ammunition there.
If so, then what did the gunmen and the government do during the recent and repeated floods? Were the gunmen tipped off that floods were coming?
In my present understanding of the rulers, I believe that they would look kindly on the proposal from the Rev gentleman if they could make it into a contract to the luckiest bidder.
Yours faithfully,
Eusi Kwayana
