Dear Editor,
The report that a hand grenade was thrown at the parked vehicle of Kaieteur News owner and publisher, Mr Glen Lall, is unsettling and a reminder that the Guyanese society since the rise of the criminal state under the PPP/C’s 23-year rule, is vulnerable to criminal conduct. Given the interlocking relationship between economics, politics and crime, this becomes even more difficult to decipher.
Whatever is the motive behind this attack on Mr Lall and the Kaieteur News, the nation must register its collective abhorrence and condemnation of this criminal act, and express our solidarity with Kaieteur News, which has evolved as a national institution.
In the past, Kaieteur News has been subjected to several heinous criminal attacks that resulted in its employees being shot and killed at its printery in Eccles some years ago, and an arson attack directed at its Saffon Street operations. When these attacks took place the general consensus of the public was that these incidents were organized, targeted attacks on the newspaper for its aggressive exposure of wrongdoings in the society.
This most recent assault on the paper and its owner occurred under the APNU+AFC administration. This fact alone makes it imperative for the regime to request that the Guyana Police Force do everything in its power to solve this crime and bring its perpetrators to justice.
Grenades have long been tools in the arsenal of the organized underworld in Guyana. For some reason these grenades have failed to explode when used. The frequency with which this has happened creates the impression that they came from the same batch and the same supplier. All this predates the present government.
The APNU+AFC government has to treat this matter as a national security emergency, since the intention of this recent attack could very well be to make the administration appear incapable of dealing with security of the country.
Yours faithfully
Tacuma Ogunseye