Dear Editor,
I note SN’s editorial of July 23rd titled, “Inquiry into VICE News allegations.” Interesting. As a position taken by the paper, it is a masterpiece of doing everything to miss hitting the nail on the head. Consider these. This solid effort was laced with what the nation’s President said, what the respected former Auditor General of long ago and columnist offered, and what the Minister of Home Affairs felt comfortable and safe to place in the public domain. Mind those words, please, comfortable and safe, for they encapsulate lots of underpinnings, many meanings. All parties named in this editorial (or responsible for it) are taking the comfortable way. They all spoke of the “Chinese” and then of “middlemen” and then felt that it was safe to say no more and go no further.
Editor, the Vice President of Guyana is the one at the heart of these sordid allegations. From the President to the Minister, there was this distancing from the Vice President’s alleged presence in this smoky affair. Not one word mentioning his presence. The President is promising without committing, he and his minister are not saying anything possessing substance, or seriousness. There is this playing with words, signaling to the man reeling from the ministrations of VICE News that he is not to worry. He must be patient, because these public games have to be played, but all will fade away in time, and with the usual lip service to truth, justice, and the Guyanese way, continuing like before. I say this with full appreciation that what President and minister deliver are nothing but packages of commercials from public relations and marketing people. They mean-words and speakers-absolutely nothing.
Further, I hear about investigations, which cannot involve the police. Simply because the requisite competence, character, and credibility are not present anywhere near the quantities that the circumstances demand. Still further, this certainly cannot involve locals because of that intangible: the matter of trust; and the conspicuously palpable, which would be the reach of political power. For its part, the best that SN had was another piece of theater in that the Vice President should “step aside.” Are all of us in the Foreign Service now? I refer to what happened in Malawi when a corruption scandal erupted and ensnared that country’s Vice President Chulima. President Churawesa moved with alacrity, intensity, and integrity: he stripped the Vice President of all his powers. It was as far as he could go with a bow to constitutional considerations.
I repeat my previous position: the Vice President has all rights of due process. He, however, should have no powers, no duties, and no official presence. The problem is that the Vice President created the President, so none of the required stripping can occur. It is why we are treated to the spectacle of a president and a minister tying themselves into knots, while trying to walk, sound, and come across as upright. My two final notes concern the omnipotent Chinese and ever-present middlemen. If there is any genuine investigation, there is that convention involving immunity, which leaves expulsion as the only choice, since this goes to the heights, official denials noted. Finally, as for middlemen, they are so knitted into this society that they are all the way into the big national official houses of the state. I recommend making a start in those places, since the biggest middlemen around here are there. To put smartly, the middlemen have expanded the usual definition to encircle top men, bottom men, sidemen, and undercover men. Are we ready for that, and we don’t need VICE News or any Chinese for such.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
