Dear Editor,
Mr Navin Chand has assailed the Sunday, July 22, Stabroek News editorial. I read the editorial and felt it was erudite, and achieved the quintessence of professional journalism.
I happened to be in the Linden community about three Sundays ago, and addressed a concerned but peaceful gathering of Lindeners.
This was followed by a number of representatives of religious groups, mainly Christians, who fervently prayed for justice. At that rally, everyone sought divine intervention in the affairs and trauma of Linden.
I appealed to the residents to remain calm and avoid being provoked, or, as I said, being trapped into a situation, which I suspected the powers-that-be wanted. My concerns were heightened when I noticed that afternoon, the body language of some senior officers, and the summoning to the western edge of the rally a riot unit in full battle gear.
There was nothing said or done to justify this show of force; the only thing I noticed in the hands of a few were Bibles, and one old lady had a religious tract.
It is necessary to remind leaders that the people in Linden did indicate that there was a programme planned to publicly express, on the streets of Linden, their concerns hoping to persuade the government to understand their plight and ease the strain they were experiencing.
One would have expected as Standard Operating Procedure that this million dollar water cannon – which some of us thought was for the Fire Service although the Minister made it clear that it was for the police – would have been stationed at Linden for the duration of this protest programme known to all and sundry.
I cannot therefore understand that Mr Chand, who says he is a young person in this nation, could in any way find something objectionable to the Sunday editorial.
I hope that Mr Chand would have read the editorial in the said Stabroek News of the following day entitled ‘Lindo Creek and Linden.‘ Again, it was a very incisive and instructive editorial.
As an aside, I was in Parliament when Prime Minister Sam Hinds repeated a statement attributed to Forbes Burnham in 1976, and repeated by Mr Chand in his letter. What neither Mr Chand nor Prime Minister Hinds seem to realize, is that since then socio-economic circumstances have changed dramatically.
What is amusing is that Burnham’s statement purportedly started with the word, ‘Socialism,‘ but we also know that the greatest proponents in Guyana for socialism/ communism were the leaders of the People’s Progressive Party (PPP).
I have not heard any of them use the word in recent times, so quoting from Burnham in 1976 is no more than a diversion and a failure to deal with the real concerns of the people of Linden who are facing the pressures of the community, which only received token attention from a government that is apparently applying different criteria to communities in Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green JP
