Court orders and bulldozers have left Guyanese homeless. One man can own hundreds of acres of land while others squat. We have witnessed women in handcuffs covered in mud as years of hard work and sweat was destroyed in a matter of hours. Those were the tears of Mocha and now Hill Foot cries. Hill Foot where two hundred families were displaced and there were cries of confused and frightened children. Bulldozers destroyed the places where they dreamed of a better life and left them traumatized. Hill Foot where parents with babies had nowhere to sleep when the sudden destruction of their homes occurred. Hill Foot where the people claimed they were assaulted by the police, and who do we believe when some of them were arrested for documenting what was happening? Is this what oil production and a fast-growing economy does to poor people? Must we expect that the displacement of the poor will continue in the most inhumane ways and those under a spell will continue to sing praises to their oppressors? How can we watch the tears of children who must now wait to have a place to call their home and believe that it is just, and we are a wholesome society? Aren’t the children the future? They will remember how rubble lay where their pillows once were like in a war zone. But perhaps it is a war zone as the battles for the minds of the people have increased. When the children remember, how bulldozers left their books in sand and dust, how will it change the course of their lives? How do children whose lives are interrupted under such harsh circumstances heal their scars? How are those who are rejected by society expected to build that society?
Children were left to sleep under the stars where the rain will amalgamate with their tears and the sun will dry them. This is Guyana where we claim we care about our children and their future. “Because We Care” cash grants I guess are supposed to assuage the suffering of our children. Cash grants which I am sure children of Hill Foot received even with no place to call their home. Dreams wrapped in cash grants, forty thousand dollars (US200) this year for every school child. A once-a-year contribution to help send children to school while some parents misuse it, fight over it, and demonstrate how illiterate and daft they are by praising their oppressors. How can we compromise ourselves by believing that our lives are drastically improving because conveniently a cash grant has been distributed just before the Local Government Elections? In the hour of cash grants and campaigns are we to forget what has been done to the people of Hill Foot? Are we to ignore the incompetence that resulted in the Mahdia fire which claimed the lives of twenty? Are we to ignore disparities in the distribution of wealth? Will the forty thousand alleviate the rising cost of living for an entire year? Why give the people occasional handouts instead of creating a country where even the poorest are paid living wages and can adequately take care of their children? Are cash grants that are usually distributed when school is closed meant to pacify the people to put an X where their oppression emanates, in a never-ending cycle?
Mothers pleaded at Hill Foot while the police followed instructions and subdued the hints of revolution. The hints of revolution are always subdued here. The people give up too easily because they have been abused for so long. Hints of revolution have resulted in their deaths. Hints of revolution have resulted in villages being stigmatized and criminalized. The people are not one in our ‘One Guyana’ dreams because the people can never unite and look at the same oppressor, hold them accountable and tell them we have had enough. The deception and delusions clothed in red, yellow, black, and green have made many powerless.
Fathers looked in disbelief, felt helpless and bewildered at Hill Foot after the hints of revolution were subdued. Those who dare to think of revolt are often called hooligans, ungrateful, thugs and ignorant and the majority will not stand with them. I guess we love it here – that Guyana runs on incompetence; that Guyanese are being made second class citizens in their country while a minority are becoming wealthier; that Guyanese cannot stand for themselves without being victimized, vilified, and condemned even by some of the people who are encountering the same suffering they are. Where can one turn when those who are to protect and serve are used to subjugate even when it is the people who are wronged? And sometimes to kill the people for reacting to the painful scenarios that continue to hurt them. The backs of men are broken and the spirit and fire in them extinguished.
Amid the people being bulldozed at Hill Foot, the death of convicted murderer Mark Royden Williams known as Smallie was announced. The Guyana Police Force claimed they killed him. Were we to celebrate that? Was that to distract us or make us feel safer when we can be bulldozed at any moment and even assaulted and killed by police? Dead men tell no tales.
The death of Williams reminds us of the painful past. He was convicted for the Bartica massacre. The shadows of the past continue to linger in Guyana. With the escape or release of Williams we were reminded that the hints of plotted unrest make us want a saviour. And the saviours we look to are often our oppressors. Who has eyes to see, sees.
Williams is dead but the people of Hill Foot are still alive in a country where the hearts of many who help to chart our course are cold. With dreams of turn-key homes and some sleeping in tents by the roadside, this is how we treat our people. Is this how we love our people? Is this how we care? The people claimed that they were not given prior notice about the destruction of their homes where many lived for as long as twenty years. In one report some people claimed that the person claiming to own the land had no papers to show them. But there was a court order for them to be removed. This is Guyana. It is often not about the wellbeing of the people but who has money and influence. They will continue to hurt the people, subduing their will to revolt while pacifying them with meagre handouts and the sheeple will blindly continue to mark their Xs.
