Dear Editor,
Moses Nagamootoo is either being mischievous or deceptive in his excursion into yet another of his fanciful pieces of folly. In a newspaper interview on June 20, 2012 he accuses the PPP/C government of “seeking to create an atmosphere of instability.”
The PPP/C must be darn stupid to shoot itself in the foot by bringing instability onto itself when it wants to see its programmes successfully implemented, notwithstanding the vicious and unrepenting cuts in the 2012 Budget by the APNU/AFC unholy alliance. Why would the PPP/C want to create this delusional atmosphere of instability in the country when it wants to be re-elected for a fifth consecutive term? The PPP/C does not act foolhardily nor does it live in a fool’s paradise as Mr Nagamootoo would want people to believe.
Moreover, the PPP/C is not perfect either; if the AFC is, then good for it. However, a close examination of the facts would show a completely different picture.
A mass party with a mass membership is likely to face all kinds of challenges from time to time – note the current challenges facing the PPP/C and the PNC albeit for different reasons and on different issues. Such is the way of politics – very complex in theory and practice.
Burnham once said: “Politics is the art of making deals.” On the other hand we in the PPP/C adhere to the approach that “Politics is a concentrated form of economics.” Of course Burnham was no socialist, yet he believed he was “all things to all people” and declared on one occasion while discussing the prospect of unity between the PPP and PNC that, “If the Bolsheviks had joined with the Mensheviks then the history of the Soviet Union would have been different” – a deceptive, yet mischievous statement of the same genre and most likely much to Mr Nagamootoo’s liking.
The hapless, opportunist AFC MP should stop pretending to be self-righteous and recall certain episodes in our country’s history which he knows quite well, yet he chooses to stash in his cupboard.
Mr Nagamootoo knows very well that provoking instability in a country like Guyana is tantamount to throwing a lighted match at a leaking gas bottle.
In this regard it is apposite to recall the infamous threat which was issued by then President Burnham himself when he threatened the opposition openly by declaring, “Our steel is sharper!”
And Hoyte true to the Burnham spirit, declared to his supporters that they should apply “slow fyah, mo fyah” to an already tense situation in the country following the 1997
elections.
Mr Nagamootoo should also reminisce on the seizure of ballot boxes by the army in 1973 and the shooting to death of two young PYO activists on the Corentyne, the anniversary of which will soon come. Further, he should go back to his notebook and reflect on the Arnold Rampersaud treason frame-up trial, the knifing to death of Father Darke and the assassination of Walter Rodney.
These acts by their very nature contributed in no small way to the creation of political instability in our country under the PNC at the time. Mr Nagamootoo was with the PPP in those days. These occurrences are implanted permanently in his psyche. Try as he would to blot them out in order to achieve some level of psychological comfort that won’t change history.
Honesty nowadays is hard to come by on the political hustings, but it still remains the best policy. And Mr Nagamootoo should come clean and say publicly when and where, since the PPP/C came to power in 1992, were such similar acts committed that contributed to the “instability” he is talking about.
Instead of trying to make the PPP/C feel guilty for initiating the VAT; building the bridge across the Berbice River in partnership with the private sector, building a brand new speciality hospital, a new international Marriot Hotel, a new international airport at Timehri and adjusting the GPL tariff rate at Linden, Mr Nagamootoo should stop creating weird, alarmist images by engaging in scare-mongering and stating that, “the administration is preparing for some kind of offensive against the people”; and that “the administration is tilting in the direction of authoritarianism and the creation of a police state,“ when he has no evidence whatsoever to validate his spurious and outlandish claims about instability.
Mr Nagamootoo’s scurrilous attacks against the PPP/C are reminiscent of exactly what he would have said during the heyday of the PNC.
Yours faithfully,
Clement J Rohee
Member of the Central and
Executive Committee PPP
