Dear Editor,
As I read your editorial of Sunday, I could not help smiling ruefully to myself over the packaged appearance of the presentation. The automatic assumptions as usual, without any objective evidence in that direction, is that ‘they did it.’ ‘They,’ of course, being persons the regime in power blames for everything, including sometimes, vissicitudes caused by the ravages of nature. It would seem that the Stabroek News is still paying pennace for its deviation from the mean that triggered punitive reprisals from the powers that be, and is determined to make up for time lost by beating out a tune on its drums that gets back into synchrony with its traditional political melody.
Your editorial pronounces that, “There are certainly wild men out there who do not adhere to any formal party structure, but who are incited to commit dangerous acts because of a tense political atmosphere, or careless statements made in the political arena, even though these were not intended to incite anyone. As things stand, the political atmosphere has been a great deal less than rational in recent times, while of the careless public statements, the most unfortunate of them (on Honduras) was made by Mr Corbin. One presumes that the recent shrillness of tone of the ruling politicians is to do with the local government elections, and their fear that members of their constituency might not turn out to vote at all, or might even defect because the PNC is not perceived as representing the threat it once did.
“As for the PNC, it is in disarray and its leader under challenge on a number of fronts, which is not an environment conducive to moderation in speech.” While I will leave the implied association of Mr Corbin with this latest event, it is amazing to note the selectivity of the Stabroek News when it comes to determining “careless statements made in the political arena.” Virtually every day in Guyana there are careless statements emanating from the political side that do not only control every aspect of the nationally owned media, but is able to proliferate its carelessness across a wider swathe of the population than any other political group.
Careless statements and responsive shrillness to events have resulted in the murders of hundreds of black men. But I suppose that the Stabroek News is discerning the dangers of such behaviour based on where the antipathy is likely to be directed.
The Stabroek News seems to have enthusiastically bought into what appears to be a locally constructed Gulf of Tonkin scenario, and is providing the groundwork for what is to follow. That there are armed gangs of men out there who participated in mass killings, and have never been apprehended or identified, is not a problem for Stabroek News. These are not considered to be wild and crazy people who might have a reason to incite tension, and even if they were, the value of the targets they are likely to focus on is way down on the scale of importance of those who own and direct the operations of the Stabroek News. Throughout the history of its existence the Stabroek News has concretized its sentiments when it comes to who are the bad guys and who are the good guys in Guyana. I guess we tend to expect too much from a newspaper that, throughout its historical examination of the politics of ethnic divisions and tensions in this nation, always seem to find itself on one particular side of the fence. And to the well-worn argument proffered that the criticism from both sides vindicates the news reporting of the Stabroek News, I would present a countering argument that the selective equation applied by the Stabroek News has never been balanced, and is still not balanced.
I do not know who applied the torch, figuratively that is, to the Ministry of Health headquarters. But in a nation where confession statements are routinely beaten out of people, a Mayor is presented with and asked to sign a statement he did not make implicating a person accused by the regime of a phantom offence, and the existence of hundreds of precedents of individuals being tortured, mutilated and killed because of articles in newspapers and other postulations arguing for their guilt, the assumptions laid out in this editorial of the Stabroek News is very irresponsible. Pay your dues yes, but at least do so in a way that does not suggest that a dangerous experience with selective amnesia is not colouring your views.
Yours faithfully,
Mark A Benschop
Editor’s note
Stabroek News remains committed to balanced reporting.
As far as Mr Benschop’s other accusations are concerned, the editorial neither suggested that Mr Corbin was associated with the fire at the Ministry of Health, nor implied that he was. The leader referred to tenseness in the political atmosphere, and clearly associated that with the “ruling politicians,” since it was their motivation which was spelt out. Such “tenseness” too, it was said, could also trigger the “wild men.”
There was no suggestion either that Mr Corbin was the only one to make “careless public statements,” merely that the one he made was the “most unfortunate” of those coming from politicians in recent times. It was hardly thought necessary to spell out why that was so, since his remark referred to the Honduras coup and drew a parallel with Guyana.
As far as the “armed gangs of men out there who participated in mass killings” are concerned, it was Stabroek News which followed cases of African men thought to have been killed or have disappeared at the hands of the so-called ‘phantom squad’ following the 2002-03 crime wave, and which published the stories. Furthermore, it is this newspaper alone of the print media which has brought to public attention the allegations of government connections to Roger Khan emanating from federal court cases in the United States.