Dear Editor,
Having read Mr Charles R Ramson’s latest fulmination against the opposition in the current Parliament (‘The demand for Rohee’s resignation was a fatuous figment…’ SN, February 28), I am left to reflect on the mentality which allows some to condemn, rightly so, perceived wrongdoing in those we oppose but defend similar tendencies in those we call our comrades.
I remember Mr Ramson, as a young lawyer back in the 1980s during the time of Burnham’s most egregious manifestations of dictatorial proclivities and personalisation of power, speaking out vociferously against such traits for which we shared a common loathing. Now, thirty years later, here he comes talking about “Rohee’s constitutional right to freedom of expression” and “the right of every citizen to work” when his PPP/C comrades observe these tenets mostly in the breach on a daily basis, and are by far the greatest abusers of political power in Guyana and the English-speaking Caribbean, while levels of corruption in the country have been reached which were unimaginable during Burnham’s tenure.
My problem with Mr Ramson is how he reconciles the party’s slide to such levels, while we hear emanating daily from party functionaries and the executive such glib outpourings about the return of democracy in 1992, even as they continue ignore the realities of the post-November 2011 dispensation. May I be so bold as to suggest that it is people in the party and the wider society who choose to muzzle their mouths in order “to eat a food”, as they say Trinidad, or remain silently on the sidelines pretending that it’s not their concern, who have contributed in no small measure to what the PPP/C has morphed into.
Yours faithfully,
GND Williams
