Editorial

As the old year turned, new regimes took hold in both the United States and China, acknowledged by most people in the Caribbean and elsewhere as the countries most likely to determine the international frameworks within which our countries will find it necessary to function. 

The government, it seems, has decided to employ a transparent and, frankly, not particularly ingenious ruse in order to adjust the public perception of policing.

Home Affairs Minister Mr Clement Rohee’s disquisition last Monday on security before a diverse audience was a dramatic departure from the usual approach of PPP/C ministers but both its form and content leave key concerns unanswered.

The election which took place yesterday in Venezuela was of a certain significance.

During the last two weeks, the governments of China and France have both tried to remove the shield of anonymity that allows internet users to voice opinions without being held accountable for them.

President Donald Ramotar’s statement in his New Year’s message that the 250th anniversary of the Berbice Slave Uprising, the 175th anniversary of Emancipation and the 175th anniversary of the arrival of Indians in Guyana “are significant to all Guyanese,” is most welcome.

It would be hard to deny a certain sense of pessimism prevailing in much of our Caricom region as we move into another year of the new millennium.

Once the final results of the November 2011 poll became known the return to office by the People’s Progressive Party/Civic was not the major issue on the post-elections agenda.

After a year of debilitating political confrontation that has poisoned the atmosphere in Parliament and spawned divisive but potent protests such as at Linden, one can understand the deep sense of frustration and bewilderment that the average member of the public feels and the angst at what the approaching year may bring.

Most people would have found that 2012 was not a year to heal the national psyche or lift the mood.

As the United States prepares to launch itself over the “fiscal cliff” – despite Washington’s cursory gestures at negotiation – it seems that the fallout of the 2008 financial crisis still looms over the American economy as darkly as when President Obama first took office.

We have come to the time of the year when it is customary, almost de rigueur, to look back and reflect on the past year’s happenings.

Events over the last fortnight in the North-east Asian peninsula and its environs have created tremors in a wider world that would include the United States and Russia.

One of the more glaring – and costly – security failings of the government has been its woeful neglect of the need for a more robust law and order presence in our interior mining communities.

Death came within a flash and violently to six occupants of a boat in the Pomeroon River on Tuesday.

After two decades it is difficult for a party like the PPP whose only apparent objective in politics is to retain power, to bamboozle anyone about its real motives.

A week after the mass shooting of 20 schoolchildren and six adults in Connecticut, the politics of gun control has never been more prominent in American life.

Last Friday’s editorial, which focused on Presi-dent Ramotar’s southward gaze towards the Common Market of the South (Mercosur) and deeper integration with the South American continent, ended somewhat tantalisingly with the thought that the shift of perspective away from the Caribbean Community might “reflect a growing perception that Caricom may have, for the time being, reached the limits of its possibilities.”

Last Monday, Dwayne Jordan joined a small local group which seldom receives new members when he was sent to death row by Justice Navindra Singh to await his execution for the murder of his wife, Claudine Rampersaud, on June 14, 2007.

That we have carried three editorials on the Syrian uprising in the course of this year, indicates how this issue has dominated the news and the attention of the major powers.