Dear Editor,
I hope that the Minister of Home Affairs, Robeson Benn, misspoke. There is nothing to decide, I gently remind the Minister. At least, there shouldn’t be in the matter of the release of the RSS report on whatever it did re the Bascom allegations on the Main Street murder (SN September 7). On a matter that has riveted the nation, as far from Main Street as Moruca and Morawhanna, there should be no discussion about a decision to release the RSS report. With respect to the Minister to release the report is a non-decision. Such a decision should not even be his to make, but the CoP or the Crime Chief, no matter how shaky they may appear to be, or in reality are. Indeed, I understand that the President had some hand in this watered-down exercise in impotency masquerading as a review. CARICOM should have said, please don’t embroil us in this story.
Look, I like Minister Benn. Yes, I admit that something is contrarian in me, but get used to it. I understand that he has a job to do, must take it on the chin for those in his realm of operations. But there are limits. Lest we forget a man was murdered, an official mess was made of subsequent official proceedings, and it gets more muddied with each new development. As an example, I stumbled on a brother and comrade, a dutifully loyal citizen if there ever was one, who went public to question the absence of presidential mandated witness protection for the forgotten (and endangered) man, Sgt. Bascom. Way to go, bro was my first reaction, then I came to my senses without missing a beat. For that had to be vetted, cleared, and approved by the biggest boss around here. It is not I, sire.
Editor, what we now have here is two busy national leaders caught in a vice of their own making (financing), which compels them to take opposite sides of this murder mystery that is not really a mystery to anyone with a head. One is ostensibly for witness protection, the other for what passes for investigation. I am sure that, as a leader once sternly reminded all Guyanese, he is a busy man doing a million things all at once. So, another layer to this ongoing Main Street mystery that now envelops all Guyana is why, how come, and where the time is found for this kind of involvement and development to occur in full operatic colour on the national stage that seemingly pits two scorpions in a bottle. And all for a murder. Is somebody kidding me, or what?
Now the poor Minister is left to carry mop and bucket and plaster some perfume with this, ahm, summit conference needed for an executive decision on whether to release or not to release. This is what he has come to, I have come to, and all of us have come to, and we don’t need the man from Stratford-on-Avon to put words in our mouths. When there are these tomfooleries pretending not to be shenanigans, then only official skullduggeries result. If I offended the Minister, I am sorry. I mean it.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall
