A new year?
Editorial
Stabroek News
December 31, 2006
And so we sit poised once more on the brink of a new year. While this partition in the endless stream of human existence is man made, it allows us to indulge the illusion that we can start anew every twelve months and leave the detritus of the past behind. It is not really true, of course, because whatever problems were there on December 31 are likely still to be there on January 1 and cannot be wished away. And where Guyana is concerned, after a series of 50 odd new years, we have still been unable to turn our backs on the past and fashion a template for the future to which more-or-less everyone can subscribe. That, it seems, is a work in progress which with the best will in the world from all sides will not be anywhere near completion in 2007.
Nevertheless, at a personal level, at least, we can permit ourselves the hope that things will improve in 2007, while at the national level there is the Cricket World Cup to look forward to. If there are any meaningful New Year wishes for the country as a whole, they surely should relate to this event, and the hope that by some series of miracles everything will fall into place in time.
But on this last day of December, we can spare a thought for the year that is gone, and ruminate on what it might bring in its train. For us here in Guyana, an uneventful election was surely one of its high points, although it had some significant lows to counter this. Perhaps the most sinister was the appearance of political assassination, the first time this has happened since 1980. It began with the gunning down of Ronald Waddell early in the year, and proceeded with the shooting of Minister Sash Sawh and his relatives. For all the stresses in the political fabric of this nation, it has to be said that assassination has not been an ingrained tradition here, and it would bring us quickly to anarchy were it to become so. In cases of these kinds of killings, above all others, it is imperative that the authorities throw all the resources at their disposal into solving them. While some very modest progress appears to have been made where Mr Sawh's murder is concerned, the same cannot be said for Mr Waddell's shooting. As it is, therefore, all kinds of unanswered questions swirl around both killings, one of which is simply was the former some kind of 'retaliation' for the latter, or were they totally unrelated?
There were plenty of other gun-related crimes as well to undermine the last vestiges of people's sense of security. It is still to be seen whether the plans the government has for reducing gun crime and revamping the police force in 2007 will make a significant impact, although no one entertains great hopes for dramatic results in the short term. Certainly the mysterious disappearance of the AK-47s from Camp Ayanganna has given the populace little cause for confidence that the security forces have not been penetrated by illegal elements. Unless all the missing weapons are recovered, and unless the perpetrators of the theft appear in court, the reputation of the Guyana Defence Force will remain under a cloud in 2007.
On the narcotics front the population had the distinct impression that the nation continued to be seriously undermined by the drugs trade in 2006. Will things improve from tomorrow onwards? There is little cause for optimism that they will. Of course an ongoing story is that of the voluble Mr Roger Khan, who was spirited away to the jurisdiction of the United States this year and who has appeared in court there on drugs-related charges. One anticipates that that matter will have its denouement in 2007, although exactly what form this will take remains to be seen.
But the drama which kept the nation riveted this year again involved Mr Khan as well as former Commissioner of Police Winston Felix. The contretemps was over some tapes of telephone conversations allegedly between the police chief, and in the case of the first, Mr Basil Williams of the PNCR. Exactly who effected the bugging of Mr Felix's office and exactly how and when this was done, are questions which remain unanswered as far as the public is concerned. As it is the government has shown no inclination to enlighten citizens on the matter, the major breach of security notwithstanding. The whole episode did mean that Mr Felix was obliged to go into retirement at the end of his term of office, and the administration was relieved of being cornered into offering a contract to an official with whom they were obviously uneasy. The aftermath of this is that the candidate for the post of Commissioner whom the administration seems to favour has had both his visas withdrawn by the United States. Everyone waits to see whether he will in fact be appointed in 2007.
Of course, the matter which will concern most citizens beginning tomorrow is VAT. While its operation despite all the publicity is no doubt imperfectly understood outside business circles, what the population has seized upon is the possibility that it may cause a rise in the cost of living. This has been denied by the Guyana Revenue Authority, but a suspicious citizenry is not altogether persuaded. More knowledgeable commentators have queried some of the arrangements as well as the capacity of the authority to administer the tax, and all that can be safely said at this stage is that VAT is the one sphere of life which will be watched closely by all segments of society in 2007.
What can also be said with absolute certainty is that the politicians will still be there in 2007, and in all probability, the same old political game. There have been a few glimmers of hope on the political horizon, such as the government actually attempting to answer questions put by the opposition in parliament, although whether that old cliché 'inclusiveness' will be given more content in the new year than it has in any of the old ones is very much a moot point. Yet the future of this country resides largely in the hands of our politicians, and by extension the future of all those who live here. So anyone who is of a mind to give our politicians three wishes on the stroke of midnight tonight, make these the capacity for rationality, the ability to truly listen and the gift of imagination. And anyone else of a particularly generous disposition could add a fourth one - humility.