Dear Editor,
Two young Guyanese boys, Joel and Isaiah Henry, 19 and 16 years old, were murdered, brutally attacked by persons yet unknown, their bodies mutilated.
Immediately, the Leader of the Opposition, Joseph Harmon, issues a statement decrying the murder, ensuring that he emphasized that these were “black” boys and with the deliberate intention of inciting racially driven protest.
With the precision of a planned exercise, PNC supporters took to the streets in Berbice blocking roads and attacking and robbing anyone who dared to cross.
President Ali immediately condemned this horrendous crime and directed the Commissioner of Police to place the full resources at his disposal to investigate the crime and bring to justice, those responsible.
The President’s statement fell on deaf ears as far as Granger and Harmon were concerned. The PNC were determined to use these tragic deaths for political purposes.
In the name of protest, labelled as “solidarity” with the families of the murdered boys, the protesters have resorted to violence, disrupting traffic, setting fire to two trucks loaded with farmers’ paddy, destroying property and physically confronting the police attempting to clear the roads, resulting in the Guyana Defence Force being called out to provide assistance.
Not a word from Granger condemning the violence. To the contrary, Harmon is on record calling the protest “a struggle against oppression, a struggle against a fraudulent government”. He claims that “we do not agree that there should be any Black and Indian fighting”, but Harmon speaks with a forked tongue. He then goes on to claim, without evidence, “too many black youths are vanishing in the same way that cousins Isaiah and Joel Henry were killed and mutilated”.
Crime Chief, Wendell Blanhum, has pointed out that the determination to promote civil unrest is preventing the police from investigating the murder, but it is doubtful whether the PNC leadership, in fact, wants the murderers to be found and punished. The PNC clearly have an entirely different agenda in mind.
Now that the PNC advocates for the struggle against oppression have defined it in their supporters’ minds as the oppression of Guyanese Africans by a Guyanese Indian government, Guyanese Indians are being targeted. A 17-year-old boy has been attacked and murdered.
Granger and Harmon have become so besotted with hanging on to power, having tried and failed to impose a rigged election result on the country, they now resort to destabilizing the country, using racial division.
The legally elected President of Irfaan Ali, faced with this ugly and, ultimately, criminal enterprise to force widespread civil unrest on the country, must act condignly and without hesitation. President Ali must call out Granger and Harmon, hold them responsible for what they are doing and treat with them and those who blindly follow them accordingly under the law.
Yours faithfully,
Kit Nascimento
