– What? His Excellency see, hears us all?
Hoping to be brief but politically pointed today. For good reason sometimes, if no one else blows your trumpet you should be allowed a reasonable boastful blast – personally.
So am I still accurate today Friday 20th? (This was written earlier in the week.) For months I had been advising that I saw His Excellency’s PNC – with its appendix AFC in tow – winning the 2020 elections by any means necessary (BAMN). My regular readers can testify. After mass advertising and massive rallies in green, the “means” to victory could have been very varied. But yes Frankly Speaking, I was actually hinting at the negative. More foul than fair.
Events have unfolded to the detriment of this country’s democracy – however fledgling that status was/is. Since I somehow still feel that His Excellency will prevail to continue a presidency, I now indulge in a brief character-delineation of the Man who would re-incarnate his idol L.F.S. Burnham.
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Our Burnhamite Brigadier…
Well sorry, I know that, especially for now and years to come, His Excellency cannot be at all “our” to thousands. But since he has his own thousands still – who have nowhere else to turn – let us “respect” the office as “ours”. The following will be most simplified. As is usually my preferred style.
Between 1966 and 1980 I idolized Forbes Burnham as Statesman-Leader, Visionary. Then by 1984 I was disillusioned as absolute power seemed to corrupt brilliance. Still I “remained PNC” in my mind. Up to 1996.
His Excellency was then a scholarly military technician in the local army. Under his hero Forbes, he authored ideological publications for the GDF and being well trained here and at military institutions in such places as Britain, Brazil and Nigeria, he also fashioned much of the army’s current orders and protocols. But for unknown reasons President Hoyte seemed to overlook his Defence Adviser, His Excellency, in favour of Major General J.G Singh. I ask you-all now! Did that plant a seed of ultimate ambition in the Brigadier’s brain/mind?
Well it came to pass that Burnham’s protégé – a PNC party man relatively quietly up to then – was part of the executive team searching for a Party Leader to replace R.H.O. Corbin. Now that the PNC party wagons have to be circled in absolute tribal solidarity, at least two former competing comrades won’t dare reveal how His Excellency manoeuvred to become Leader. All by himself. The man’s silent “political class” became open achievement. Recall him being PNC Leader? APNU Leader? Parliamentary Opposition Leader? At the same time? The astute gentleman-scholar turned political leader at a strategic time! (He’s now President, Supreme Executive authority, Commander in Chief, Petroleum Minister, etc. etc.)
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Maximum leader, militaristic mentality
“The rest is history” now. He didn’t disappoint me with his first United Nations speech in 2015. Venezuela had to be rallied against.
Relatively swiftly, after 2015, the real Command-Centre Brigadier emerged. As the 1992 PPP did, the Public Service saw nearly all Afro executives. As did Boards, Commissions et al. Loyalists all. Minister of State – Green House Spokesman Harmon headed a string of qualified ex GDF Officers to man vital government entities. (I wonder: If Brigadier Phillips was allowed to be a real Prime Minister won’t he keep all those former officers-buddies?)
So “our” Brigadier has ignored the Constitution even before the vote of confidence; has caused us millions to pay lawyers to argue 33 being less than 32 and has now seemingly cemented a legacy that Forbes first fashioned. Still showing a “softer gentler side”, kneeling with wife, posing with pastors and priests, playing phagwah, the Brigadier is set to “lead” us for another Decade of Development. And nothing could be done about it? (What? His tribal supporters care not about the PPP, the nine new parties – or the US State Department?)
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Immorality, personal need, what fraud
Simply put, when the poor receives badly needed survival assistance – increased salaries, pensions, house lots, cash transfers, contracts, employment – they overlook rigging or corruption in high places.
Like the poor original coca farmers of South America who thank ruthless cartel bosses, our needy will abandon old-time values, morality to welcome the Rulers’ Relief. Tell them not about rigging during his Excellency’s Oil-and-Gas next decade,
Do you all realise that the 2020 elections caused eight prime ministers to visit? To observe? Even “participate”? Former leaders of Senegal, Barbados and Jamaica came. They encountered His Excellency’s supporters and the GECOM. Ho-ho-ho.
Then came five others from the CARICOM. Was that a set-up of all set-ups. Ho-ho-ho. One President, 8 prime ministers. Yet….
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What!? His Excellency is watching?
The man’s seminal book popularized the warning: “Big Brother is watching you”.
Orwell had accurately predicted that most States – of various systems and ideologies – would employ electronic technology to monitor, spy on and/or regulate what citizens do. Today businesses and households are obliged to install personal surveillance cameras to capture the wicked who do harm to life, limb, property.
Recently folks have been virtually scaring me with tales of how our State’s “security” can monitor our every move! If the state wishes, I’m told, “security” can know when you use your bathroom, kiss or slap your wife or pilfer from the office.
There are smart-city cameras and police special branch capabilities.
I recall that around 1986 I accompanied Deputy PM RHO Corbin on a tour of GT&T and saw how technicians there broke into any/all telephone calls. Of course they can do that. But even the police need court orders to trace persons’ telephone calls. When investigating crime. The PPP’s Cde Gail Teixeira recently publicized the fact that just after a gentleman with a Russian name visited Opposition Leader Jagdeo, Special Branch fellows accosted the visitor at his hotel with numerous questions. (Turns out the gentleman was an old IDB operative!) But you see what can happen? With Secretary General Harmon at the Presidency – himself an old GDF “Intelligence” man, imagine how the technology is employed. Next time I’ll discuss three agencies equipped to monitor and “spy” In whose interest? What do you know about facial recognition technology?
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Political ponderings, plus Corona (PPPC)
1. Skepticism? Cynicism? No! The whole CARICOM re-count verification invite was not His Excellency’s caper.
Not because he had just granted PM Mia a high national award she came. CARICOM probably felt badly seeing those other international groupings here. No-no! No set-up. But why did not His Excellency check the law first before inviting the CARICOM Counting Experts.
2. His Excellency’s unbribable Police Commis-sioner should take a bow. Great work at GECOM venues. As instructed.
3. What do you tell the youth about thievery when they witness the theft of the people’s will?
4. Coming next: His Excellency’s now-seminal piece: “The marginalization of Afro-Guyanese”; also empowering Afro-Guyanese 2020-2025; also the PNC protester, the American Ambassador – and oil.
‘Til next week!