Scores of People’s Progressive Party (PPP) protesters yesterday descended upon the Pegasus Hotel, partially disrupting a lunch held by the Guyana Manufacturing and Services Association (GMSA), at which President David Granger was invited to speak.
Stabroek News arrived on site after the protestors had already gathered, but was informed that the protestors arrived, and congregated at the front gate of the Pegasus Hotel about thirty minutes before the function was scheduled to begin, hurling chants of “illegal government,” and “hold elections now”.
It was clear that the action was not anticipated by police officers, as barriers were erected after the protestors arrived and seemed to be in response to the protestors’ arrival.
Initially, the barriers were successful in containing the protestors to the hotel’s main gate, but they eventually bypassed barriers that were intended to bar access to the environs of the back gate.
PPP executives present during the protest included Opposition Leader, Bharrat Jagdeo, Charles Ramson Jr., Kwame McCoy, and PPP/C Presidential Candidate, Irfaan Ali.
The protest action at the hotel’s front gate prompted its operators to secure it with a padlock. However, this measure prevented protestors as well persons invited to the function from accessing the compound, especially since the alternative access way, from the back gate, was flooded due to rain earlier in the day.
Eventually, persons realised that there was a thin stretch of land not covered by water which stretched from the back gate, to a dry section of the compound, and used that path to access the compound. Others gained access by way of an SUV which made multiple trips ferrying invitees through the flood waters.
Diversion
As protestors outside the hotel continued their chants, they kept a watchful eye out for the president’s vehicle. Eventually, riot police, equipped with shields and batons arrived on the scene, and removed the protestors who had congregated at the back gate, so that they were all concentrated in the vicinity of the front gate.
Eventually, the president’s vehicle and its escort approached the front gate, arresting the attention of the majority of protestors.
However, this was merely a decoy, allowing Granger, who was being transported in another vehicle, and escorted by different presidential guards, to enter the hotel‘s grounds through the back gate. The eyes of most protestors still drawn by the diversion, only a few protestors noticed the vehicle entering the compound.
A few protestors, however, did notice the vehicles entering the back gates, and gave chase into the hotel’s compound. However, the president had already entered the Savannah Suite, in which the function was being held, and they were prevented from proceeding inside. Inside the Savannah Suite some of the invitees launched their own protest against the President.
