Dear Editor,
I refer to Mr Hydar Ally’s letter titled ‘The perception of Guyana as a crime haven is a result of media sensationalism’ (SN, Jan 7).
There are numerous questions for Mr Ally; I limit myself to only a few.
Are those towering buildings around and about the fruits of honest legal endeavours? Are those related businesses that spring up overnight with no meaningful source of wealth (or readily identifiable investors) not more times than most traceable to dirty money, blood money? A man from City Hall itself stated publicly that the majority of them are unauthorized, hence illegal – is that media sensationalism? Are those overseas drug interdictions (sometimes massive) and using an endless array of innovative methods the efforts of a handful of shippers and criminal violators?
Or are they not the lucrative handiwork of multiple networks that span public and private sector operations and involve growing numbers of citizens? And are those busts, which form part of a major national industry, a criminal enterprise to be sure, the result of media sensationalism? I suggest Mr Ally not only think and survey the economic coastline before he writes, but that he struggle strenuously to approach the truthful. Or at least appear to be. Some more.
Are the related killings, violence, gun-running, and so on and so forth the result of media sensationalism? Or are they real crimes committed by real people, who are protected by real sleazy political figures?
I say enough with the questions. Now all that is left to be said is this: Guyana is a crime haven; this is not speaking of crimes of passion and the like, as destructive as these are.
Rather, Guyana is a genuine, all-encompassing criminal paradise, which includes masterminds, perpetrators, aiders and abettors and protectors. The latter would be political friends and comrades; they are not mine. In any analysis, that is the sorry reality and it is not the result of media sensationalism. It is what it is and a public secret. In fact, it has not been a secret for the longest while.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
