Editorial

As the necessary and important reflections on the Great War are published throughout this year, historians have tried to grapple with the lessons of what American historian Fritz Stern memorably called “the first calamity of the twentieth century, the calamity from which all other calamities sprang.”

Both explicit and implicit in last Friday’s editorial, prompted by rising political tension in St Kitts and Nevis, were questions about Caricom’s regard for the quality of democracy in the region and its willingness and ability to address issues of good governance and threats to the democratic order from all quarters.

Over the past few days this newspaper, as it has always done, published photographs that were taken around the country – mostly in Georgetown.

Towards the end of last year, the Barbados Minister of Finance, Chris Sinckler indicated to the citizens of the country that it had become clear that the country was faced with a reduced ability to meet its financial commitments.

Additional material resources allocated to the Guyana Police Force (GPF) ‒ including additional ranks, arms and ammunition, vehicles, computers and police stations – are unlikely to yield any commensurate improvement in the quality of policing unless, somehow, the allocation of those resources can be accompanied by a corresponding enhancement of the Force’s public image.

It should concern all of the people of Guyana, not only Region 10, that a multi-faceted agreement to address the origins of the unrest on July 18, 2012 that claimed three lives and sparked mayhem in Linden is yet to produce a single tangible result.

Dreadful things happen in this society, but nothing quite appalled the nation as much as the allegations which were publicized last week concerning Colwyn Harding, who is currently in the Georgetown Public Hospital under treatment. 

Earlier this week the government of Mexico sent thousands of federal police and military troops into the western state of Michoacán, hoping to arrest suspected members of the Knights Templar drug cartel.

Alleged arson attacks on the Venezuelan Embassy and the Organisation of American States (OAS) office in St Kitts and Nevis, two Sundays ago, served to place the spotlight on the health of that country’s democracy.

Almost 100 years ago, an army convoy travelled from the White House to Lincoln Park in San Francisco, a distance of nearly 2500 miles.

In the course of 2013 there was periodic grumbling within the region as to whether our integration movement had been making progress towards increasing unification of effort in both the economic and political spheres.

The fact that it took this length of time to cause the physical conditions in the vicinity of the National Assembly to secure some measure of public attention is a poignant comment on the way we live as a country.

On January 3rd this year, the Minister of Home Affairs, Mr Clement Rohee delivered a progress report on a series of new plans he had unveiled on the last day of 2012 to rein in crime.

The citizens of this country should be very grateful to the Touchau, Councillors and residents of the small Amerindian village of Karaudarnau in the Rupununi, because they were the ones who stopped the Parabara road, being built by a Brazilian, from being driven through their lands.

The day before yesterday, in a marathon press conference, Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, engaged in a spectacular act of contrition.

Eusébio – like all the truly great sportsmen of history, Eusébio da Silva Ferreira was instantly recognisable by his first name alone.

“I go to the market every Sunday; I know what it takes for a family of four or five to put food on the table, to put shelter and so forth.

It would probably not be an overstatement to say that the year just passed was dominated by events in the Middle East.

What politicians do, the decisions they make and the pronouncements which they place in the public domain have to do first and foremost with what they perceive to be best for their political fortunes.

The announcement on Saturday by Muri Brasil Ventures Inc (MBVI) that it would no longer pursue its controversial Permission for Geographical and Geophysical Survey (PGGS) in the New River Triangle in southeastern Guyana has to be seen as a positive result for society’s struggle for openness and accountability in governance.