Dear Editor,
With reference to the letter by Mr Lomarsh Roopnarine captioned ‘Berbice should secede’ (SN 27.10.08) I await with eager anticipation to see how a state that deemed the utterances of Oliver Hinckson criminally seditious, will react and respond to this.
Mr Lomarsh Roopnarine, in calling for the secession of a county that is populated mostly by Guyanese of Indian descent, but in which the bones of many of the ancestors of Africans who were enslaved in plantations across that county rests, offers up the most sophomoric reasons for such secession.
He claims that Berbice is being marginalized to meet the needs of the other counties. In other words, the other counties are welfare recipients surviving on the production of Berbicians. What about if I extrapolate on that reasoning and suggest that all who live in Guyana today are welfare recipients benefiting from from three hundred plus years of free labour from enslaved Africans. I mean, is that more far fetched than Mr Roopnaraine’s assertion? After all, the foundation for the agricultural and other economic and social infrastructure in Guyana was constructed on the backs of the enslaved in all three colonies of Guyana.
Roopnarine argues that the site of all major institutions is located in Demerara, but is this unique to just Guyana? Every nation in this world has a capital, and apart from the highly developed nations, the major institutions in every one of them are generally proximate to the seat of that capital. How can a county from which many of the leaders of the current regime sit in governance justify the claim of being treated like a colony of another where it has just been reported that major portions of monies budgeted for that area had not been utilized? Imagine this claim at a time when construction is taking place on a bridge in this marginalized county, while the one in the alleged marginalizing county is rapidly deteriorating from lack of attention. Imagine the county against which not one harsh word is ever uttered by the powers that be, claiming to be marginalized in favour of a county in which large population centres are damned, labelled as hoarders of criminals, and experience rank hostility from officials with the power to make decisions crucial to the quality of life they will endure. Boy, it just gets crazier day by day in this my beloved country.
I will wait with eager curiosity to see how the state will react to Mr Roopnarine’s statement: “Finally, for now, the secession of Berbice will proceed within the boundaries of law and order as well as the will of Berbicians themselves to become independent.”
Regardless of what he said thereafter, from this statement Roopnarine is clearly proposing that “the boundaries of the law” will not limit the movement to secession of the county of Berbice.
His afterthought assertion that, “I do not propose any violence or revolutionary means to achieve the goal of independence” is, inarguably, that; an afterthought hastily appended to obscure the obvious intent behind the previous comment. Pundits and letter writers pontificating on behalf of the current regime, including Mrs Janet Jagan, frequently call for the prosecution of letter writers on the other side of the political equation for comments far less charged than this one. If someone say from Buxton or Linden, were to make such a public call for secession, they would be accused of inciting violence, people would be demanding their heads, and there is absolutely no doubt that law enforcement would be investigating them and dogging their every move thereafter.
People should not be deceived by the silly claims being advanced by Roopnarine for secession of the county of Berbice. His is a double entendre agenda, flowered with a bunch of deceptive roses designed to hide the odious thorns behind his true motivations. The question is,are there equal limits on the freedom of speech in Guyana, or is it a matter of who is saying what? Can a Williams say the same thing as Roopnarine says within the boundaries and jurisdiction of Guyana and elicit the same kind of response from officialdom? I guess we will have to wait and see.
Although I find Roopnarine’s argument nauseatingly deceitful and intelligence insulting, he has set the stage for a precedent to be established on freedom of speech in Guyana. Personally, I do not believe that what he has said should be prosecutable in any real democracy. But in this country any evidence of different strokes for different folks needs to be illuminated. The letter columns are the only medium in which such illumination, however limited, can take place.
Yours faithfully,
Robin Williams
