Dear Editor,
In today’s Stabroek News there is a letter by Khemraj Tulsie that I just have to comment on. Whilst I agree with most of what he wrote on Guyana’s crying need for equitable and inclusive governance, there were two sentences that I must publicly disagree with.
“We do not want to be ruled, we want to be fairly governed. We got rid of rulers 50 years ago.”
Colonial rule 51 years ago was a system called internal self-governance, and decisions on the ground were made by locals who knew the meaning of integrity. Officials, by and large, accepted the checks and balances and weren’t driven by power mania or money greed. During the following 28 years we saw leaders become rulers, and in the 23 years after that we had rulers who ruled for personal riches. Some of us went along, and too few of us resisted. Over those 50 years we have allowed authoritarianism and greed to become entrenched in our leadership and in most of our officials. However well-meaning many of our new leaders may be, they have to deal with a culture of bribery and misuse of power that will take decades to eradicate.
I have to say in anguish that I see neither the competence nor the common will among our leaders to make real progress on that task in the next four years.
Yours faithfully,
Gordon Forte
