Etched in the public mind about Mark Benschop is his incarceration, for five years, in solitary confinement for treason followed by an unconditional pardon by then President Bharrat Jagdeo.
As mentioned last week, when Benschop finally returned to live in Guyana in 1998, he tried and failed to gain work at Channel 9, a station that generally supported the PNC. He then began working with Channel 69, which was unapologetic about its support for the PPP/C and in the ethnic cauldron that is Guyana, he could not avoid being viewed as a supporter and mouthpiece of the PPP/C. After only about three months, Benschop left Channel 69 when the owner demanded that he apologise to President Jagdeo, who was apparently furious about a statement Mark made in one of his broadcasts.
Benschop now gained employment and began to air programmes on Channel 9 accusing the Jagdeo government of corruption, extrajudicial killings, Afro-Guyanese marginalisation, etc., which not only made him seem pro-PNC but in