Category: Letters to the editor

As my family mourn the passing of our gardener who touched the lives of all seven of us, I cannot help but note how in our society, obituaries seem reserved for the rich, the powerful and the famous. And how the remarkable qualities of the less fortunate are ignored in their lifetimes and forgotten at their death. He was sixty-nine years old but no one, young or old, knew him by any name other than ‘Pops.’ Since his sudden death last Friday, the members of our family have been expressing their impressions of Pops and it is remarkable how we each saw him in our own special way.

Christelle who is ten remembers Pops not as the gardener but for the way, “We all felt like family,” for being there every day, not as work but as a hobby. She remembers Pops for always watching over her, her sister Christen and brother Christoff with care and love as they played outside in the yard.

Christen remembers seeing him coming to work on his red bike, putting on his hat when the sun was hot and taking refuge in the garden shed when it was unbearably so. She remembers him as always being at Ogle – in the morning when she woke up, to the time she came from school, and after she migrated, on her vacation from the US. She recalls how if there was a stray cat around, he didn’t get rid of it, he took it home and cared for it.

Ravee remembers Pops as simple a man as one can ever know. One who could neither read nor write but whose life proved that one does not have to be an intellect to be special. Having known Pops since he was an early teenager, Ravee’s fondest memories of Pops are the times he would sit outside on the patio at Ogle and just ‘gaff’ with Pops.

From those “dozens of conversations” over the years [and no doubt for Pops’ helping to slip him in the house when he came in late after the rest of us were asleep], Ravee remembers Pops as loyal, honest and caring.

Christoff who is perhaps the quietest of our children remembers Pops as “a man who you could talk to for hours on end no matter what you are doing.” He recalls how Pops could carry on a conversation about most things and how he had something to say whenever Christoff went outside.

Ena recalls that having first worked as a tiler while the house was being built, Pops brought a garden into being from what was up to then a pasture, giving life to their ideas and richness and warmth to the yard. He was always reluctant to prune the plants, arguing that to cut off the flowers or fruits was a sin. Practical man as he was, while taking care of the flower garden, he argued respectfully for more attention and space for the kitchen garden, noting, “You can’t eat flower plant.”

For me, Pops represented treasured values and an era that is sadly passing. He cared for our children with love and respect, treated his job as sacred, never missed a day’s work on account of rain or shine, ill-health or holiday, never quite trusted the motor car, thought the computer flash drive I sometimes carry around my neck as a “tabeej” (the Hindu phial to ward off evil), never questioned an instruction or a request that he cover for someone who had not turned up for work. He had a remarkable sense of humour and brought to the daily discussion with his colleagues the most practical point of view, scolding Benjie, who works in the house, “Man han(d) mek fuh wuk, nah clap roti,” or telling Ena, if she dabbles with her hands in the garden, “You nah doo dah, da ah me wuk, you guh look after de bass.”

He was caring and loving. I never heard him raise his voice to anyone and he would willingly offer to share his modest lunch with any of our other staff, even as he took out his false teeth to start his meal.
He was the only Indian among the Ogle staff but mixed freely, could discuss race without causing offence and was great fun to be with.

Recently he and I were discussing his future and as he looked forward, his words were, “Me nah ah guh nowhere, ah right ya me guh dead.” I thought there and then how much Ena, Ravee, Roger, the three youngest ones and I are indebted to him.

I actually looked forward to the day when we could do something for Pops, to help him through his old age, as he has done for us as a family for fifteen years. Now, that opportunity has gone and we are left with cherished memories of one of the greatest men I have met, my father included.

We were indeed fortunate to know him and have him as a member of our family for as long as the youngest children have been around.
When they went to live in the States it was Pops with whom I shared my Sunday mornings while he tended the plants and vegetables as if some divine authority was causing him to act with the highest standard of love for the land, for nature, for his colleagues, his grandchildren and for us.

Christen, as children do, thought that his enduring qualities would cause him to be there forever. He may not be, but his memories and values will be.

Farewell, Pops, you have done your duty, made your mark and as Ena suggests, you are called on to other gardens. We will miss you though.

I think the representatives of civil society were right to accept the invitation from President Bharrat Jagdeo to meet with him on the crime situation following the Bartica massacre.

My concern that they may not have properly grasped the opportunity for a meaningful exchange with the President arises from the anodyne statement coming out after two days of consultations.

That statement certainly does not make me feel safer or optimistic as the only matter of substance agreed is that civil society will have an opportunity to review the government’s security plan. Does this have anything to do with the reports referred to Special Select Committees chaired by the Prime Minister, including the one referred to as the Chang Report?

If the “plan” to which the representatives are privy is a separate plan what is the relevance of the work being done by the Special Select Committees?

The death of Mr. Deryck Bernard who returned from Trinidad and Tobago two weeks ago for the funeral of his mother came to me as a great shock. To his wife Myrna, children Ayanna and Denyse and to siblings who had just returned to their homes abroad, it was a cruel blow. May God in whom Deryck believed and served by way of good and selfless work to the people of this country give them the understanding and strength to cope with yet another personal tragedy.

Within the past years, Deryck, an avid seeker of truth and learning embarked on a course of study to become a lawyer. He was an outstanding student who was willing to challenge the status quo, questioning the administrators and lecturers about the failure to teach concepts such as Islamic, Feminist and Marxist Jurisprudence and challenging notions and practices to which the legal profession seems unshakably bound.

Within weeks of being at the Hugh Wooding Law School he soon earned the respect of the administration and his colleagues. In fact, a couple of weeks ago, Deryck was asked without prior notice to comment on the process of legislative enactment under the Westminster Model. I felt proud at the eloquence and clarity of his account which was met by spontaneous applause from the entire class.

He was also a modest individual, a great raconteur and great company. He was quietly but passionately patriotic and was already planning the annual Guyana Night to be the best show ever put on at Hugh Wooding Law School.

I will miss him, the exchange of visits, the exchange of notes and ideas, his generosity and the regular conversations he, Donald Rodney and I shared over inexpensive meals appropriate to students.

As Deryck put it, our age would not allow us the luxury of learning on the job but required that we hit the ground running. Deryck did not live to see that dream or to write several more books or short stories.

His death is a huge loss to our country. The students at Hugh Wooding Law School will miss him.

I spent Sunday morning visiting friends in Lusignan and the homes attacked in the massacre there. While I was moved by the accounts of devastation and grief and the tale of horror of those who lost loved ones, I do not pretend that I can fully appreciate the damage to the community and the trauma to the surviving close relatives. To put a father, mother and child on a sofa at 1.30am and shoot them at point blank range is something associated with the Nazis, not Guyana.

No doubt it was an act of unspeakable horror for Guyana and those responsible should pay for it. But the question is where does the responsibility end?

Since 1993, when Monica Reece was murdered and her body dumped in downtown Georgetown, citizens have been calling for action by the Government to stem the rising tide of lawlessness that was enveloping Guyana. Instead, we have since witnessed cycles of unsolved murders of a Minister of Government, a prominent media and African rights activist and hundreds of others. After each wave we are treated by the Government to the same banalities about what it will and will not do and from the opposition political parties to what the Government should have done but did not do. And there the matter would end until the next major round of murders.

Various reports such as the Symonds Report and the Disciplined Forces Commission Report were swept aside to make room for indicted New Yorker Bernard Kerik and a politically controlled and ineffective National Commission of Law and Order.

For these failed initiatives the President and his Government must accept inescapable responsibility. But they are not the only ones that are culpable. On May 16, 2003, the National Assembly set up the Disciplined Forces Commission (DFC) comprising Justice Ian Chang as Chairman, recently appointed Appeals Court Judge Charles Ramson, Anil Nandlall and Mr David Granger and Ms. Maggie Bierne of Northern Ireland who was replaced on her resignation from the Commission by Professor Harold Lutchman.

The Commission was required to “examine any matter relating to public welfare, public safety, and public order, defence or security, including the structure and composition of the disciplined forces and make recommendations generally with the view to promoting their greater efficiency and giving effect to the need in the public interest that the composition of the disciplined forces take account of the ethnic composition of the population!” The Commission handed in its report on May 6, 2004, almost four years ago.

It was a comprehensive document with some one hundred and sixty-four specific recommendations, many of which were then [and now] immediately implementable. But instead of action, the response of the National Assembly was to refer the report to a Special Select Committee with heavyweights like Mr Bernard De Santos as chairman, Ms Gail Teixeira and Mr. Doodnauth Singh from the government and Mesdames Clarissa Riehl and Debbie Backer and Messrs Basil Williams and Raphael Trotman from the opposition, all attorneys-at-law. That Committee met on ten occasions but never completed its mandate or submitted a report.

Strangely, the National Assembly did not revisit the matter again until July 26, 2007 (just remember the date for one moment) when it again passed another motion appointing yet another Special Select Committee to conclude the examination of the DFC Report. In the discussions on the July 26 motion, the most vocal critics of the government were ironically the opposition members of the first Select Committee, accusing it of tarrying while Guyana was burning from the heat of the criminals.

One of the opposition members even referred to the motion as a sad indictment of the National Assembly and the people of Guyana. How a trained attorney-at-law could find the failure by that body an indictment of the people of Guyana is surely a legal stretch but in its further confusion and dilatoriness, instead of treating the matter with the urgency it deserved, the National Assembly gave the Select Committee six months to come up with its recommendations on the recommendations.

Completely oblivious of the seriousness of their mandate and the deadline, the Committee on this occasion headed by Prime Minister Hinds and comprising Messrs. Rohee, Benn, Dr. Bheri Ramsarran, Bernard De Santos and Ms. Philomena Sahoye-Shury from the government and the same four from the opposition is yet to meet! I am therefore surprised at the statement attributed to committee member Debra Backer in the media that home affairs minister Clement Rohee is the chairperson of the committee since one would expect her to know such basic information.

Now for the significance of the date of the motion: the six months expired on the day the Lusignan Massacre took place!

At a minimum the failure of the National Assembly constitutes a dereliction of duty by all our Parliamentarians and Guyanese should accept no excuse for this gross incompetence but for which so many lives including the Lusignan 11 may have been saved. Mr. Trotman of the AFC has apologized on behalf of the politicians. To the dead and those close to them, such apologies are of course meaningless and for others the question is what next. Do the opposition parties not realise that their contribution to major crime events almost mirrors the Government’s React, talk and forget – until the next episode.

The Government bears primary responsibility for the management of the country but one of the functions of the opposition is to bring effective pressure to bear on the Government when it fails to do its job. Instead, like the Government they too seem to offer only blame and excuses.

Guyana weeps not only for those who lost loved ones but for ourselves for repeatedly putting our faith and our lives in the hands of an ineffective bunch of politicians. If after all of this we still accept facile excuses from the Government about the police, and from the opposition about the misuse of the PPP/C’s majority rendering them (the opposition) impotent, we as citizens will have only ourselves to blame.

In a discussion on the Lusignan Massacre on the State-owned NCN, Minister of Home Affairs Mr. Clement Rohee lamented that he did not see Eusi Kwayana and other letter-writers to the media come out against the atrocity in Lusignan.

In fact Wednesday’s Stabroek News published Kwayana’s letter “There has been a string of atrocities coming one after another, from murder of a mother to civilians and soldiers. But none can compare with the cold-blooded Lusignan carnage of the innocent, as if some new Herod has ordered the slaughter of a new generation as part of some scheme of wild justice”.

If Mr. Rohee was honestly mistaken would it not have been proper for the programme’s host Kwame McKoy and the other panellist Dr. Leslie Ramsammy to correct the Minister particularly since they were all criticising what they saw as attempts to politicise the atrocity?