If the Government does positive things I will write about them
Stabroek News
March 5, 2004
Dear Editor,
I have twice seen Mr Donald Ramotar, General Secretary of the PPP/C party, refer to my monthly columns published in the Stabroek News as being lop-sided and biased against his Party and the Government. I thought originally of using my upcoming column to respond to Mr Ramotar, and then after careful consideration, thought it best not to pollute my monthly writings with responses to the Ramotars of this world. Why do I write the things I do about governance in Guyana one may ask, well the answer is as follows:
- Guyana suffers the ignominy of having the highest rate of HIV/AIDS in the hemisphere, second only to Haiti.
- Guyana has the poorest economy in the region second only to Haiti.
- Guyana has the highest rate of mortgage foreclosures and bankruptcies of small businesses in the region.
- Guyana is the only nation other than Haiti in the region with existing state sanctioned death-squads.
- Guyana is the only country in the Region where two senior and highly important Ministers of Government for whatever reasons, cannot legally travel to North America.
- Guyana has the highest suicide rate in the region second to none.
- Guyana has the highest rate of outward migration in the English speaking Caribbean.
- Guyana has the highest percentage of high school and university graduates unemployed second to none in the region.
- Guyana has amongst the highest rate of failures at regional education examinations.
- Guyana has a crime rate on a per capita basis, which places it according to INTERPOL statistics, as being amongst the most unsafe countries in the world.
- Guyana has one of the highest rates of extra-judicial and mysterious, and unsolved murders in the world on a per capita basis.
I can go on and on and on but will end here. At least the people of Haiti and elsewhere can get some relief whether Aristide was democratically elected, kidnapped, forced out of office or what.
We are left with the unnatural and unholy imposition of an inept and corrupt government.
Before you get a chance to say it, spare us the diatribe about the PNC being responsible for the abysmal failures that I have set out above. This is the PPP/C's record of service after eleven years not the PNCR's, GAP/WPA's, ROAR's, Justice For All's, GIHA's, ACDA's, the talk show hosts', academics', experts', diplomatic missions'and all of the other groups and organizations that are routinely blamed for the failure.
If Mr Ramotar would look carefully he would see that it is not that people are attacking his government to remove it from office but rather that his government itself is actively engaged in its own destruction and delegitimisation.
Because of paranoia, any comment made about what is taking place in Guyana is condemned as being anti-government.
Incidentally, if in fact Mr Ramotar does read my columns he would have found numerous articles on diverse topics such as border issues, the National Assembly, children's education, and symbols of nationhood to name a few. Give me proof that the lives of ordinary men, women and children are being improved in a positive way by your government so that their are lives are filled with hope and laughter, and I will write about it unhesitatingly.
Yours faithfully,
Raphael Trotman