Editorial

In recent weeks developments have taken place that show a new United States interest in furthering liberalization of trade relations with hemispheric countries.

Most post offices in Guyana, particularly the rural outposts, are small, inconspicuous fragile-looking buildings, not attended by much evidence of security.

Towards the end of March in its usual excitable style the Government Information Agency reported that President Bharrat Jagdeo had committed $50M for road improvement between Matthews Ridge and Port Kaituma in the northwest.

Considering that the PPP never stops talking about democracy, it surely has the most opaque internal ‘democratic’ processes of all the parties.

Two weeks ago on a theatre stage in Brussels, as part of a cultural project called Shahrazad – Stories for Life – the Iraqi poet and essayist Manal Al-Skeikh (born in Nineveh, now resident in Norway) read the following passage from a lyrical ‘Letter to Europe’: “My experience of the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions taught me the following lesson: if people are determined to live, destiny will respond.

A row that has erupted in neighbouring Trinidad and Tobago may resonate with some in Guyana.

News that domestic violence survivors are finding temporary refuge at the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security’s first White Zone in Berbice is welcome and the programme as outlined by its Coordinator Nalini Katryan provides a measure of hope.

The eruption of a virtual civil war in the Ivory Coast is really a long-delayed effect of the character of political rule which this country has experienced since its independence in 1960, in particular the long period of rule (1960-1993) under former President Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

Some of us are still trying to get our minds around last Tuesday’s incident allegedly involving seventeen students from two city schools who, reportedly armed with knives, travelled several miles from Georgetown to Leonora, reportedly to settle a score with a student at the Leonora Secondary School.

At his press conference on March 31, Head of the Presidential Secretariat , Dr Roger Luncheon accused Stabroek News of “reckless hostility” towards the One Laptop Per Family project. 

Only now that the country is on the brink of an election has President Jagdeo seen fit to dispense with the services of his Minister of Local Government, Mr Kellawan Lall.

The bewildering pace at which information technology is evolving has begun to affect old fashioned politics with unsettling speed.

On this day in history, in 1953, at Sabina Park, Jamaica, Clyde Walcott completed a century against India to become the third of the three Ws, along with Frank Worrell and Everton Weekes, to hit a hundred each in the same innings.

This newspaper reported yesterday that some 17 students –all in their early teens—from two city secondary schools had been held by the police and were giving statements after they marched into the Leonora Secondary School armed with knives, to settle a score.

It would not be at all surprising if individuals and officials in various parts of the world with whom Caricom countries do business, are asking themselves this question about our region, concerning what they have been led to think is a regional institution, the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ).

It would, perhaps, be precipitate to suggest, at this stage, that the hurdles that appear to be springing up following GRA Commissioner General Kurshid Sattaur’s publicly stated commitment to a full and transparent investigation into the Vega Azurit cocaine incident could end up derailing a major drug bust.

There has been much parsing of President Jagdeo’s Babu John address this month as in the past his presentations at this hallowed site have set the scene for what is to follow both politically and in terms of policies at the national level.

The Government of Guyana, normally so garrulous on the subject of democracy and human rights, has been quite quiet on the matter of Libya and the violence visited by Muammar Gaddafi on his citizens.

Sometimes it is worth stating the obvious. In Guyana we are trapped in a mirthless tautology.

No one should have been surprised by the West Indies’ departure from the quarterfinals of the Cricket World Cup on Wednesday.