Ravi Dev Column – Independence and the National Question

I’ve always had mixed emotions when I think about our “independence”. I am old enough to have experienced firsthand the violent wrenching apart of our peoples that preceded this supposedly blessed state and left it in quotation marks for me ever since. I was in short-pants as the police fired tear gas to clear “peaceful [...]

The Baccoo speaks

There was the electrocution of which I spoke the other day and there is going to be yet another. It is as if people are not interested in living to see the end of the year because they are trying to save. The unfortunate thing here is that a child is going to be the [...]

Ronald Sanders – Dominica: Poverty and Potential (Part 2)

By Sir Ronald Sanders A few years ago, Hugh O’Shaughnessy, an English journalist writing about the Caribbean island of Dominica, said that it was the only territory that Christopher Columbus would recognise today, so little had it changed from when he chanced upon it in 1493. The island’s physical appearance remains the same because of [...]

Freddie Kissoon – “Senza Fine” and the flight of money

“Senza Fine” (pronounced sensa finay) is one of Italy’s great love songs only sung (as far as I know) in English by Connie Francis. It means, ‘never ending.’ Monica, the daughter of the world famous music composer, Henry Mancini (who gave us the Pink Panther theme), does it the best in the Italian language. The [...]

Mr Bisram is not forthcoming in his answers to questions

Dear Editor, I refer to Mr. Vishnu Bisram’s letter of May 21, captioned “Freddie should hate the message and not the messenger.” Mr. Bisram is not going to wear me down. I have every intention of replying to each one of his missives, once they contain criticisms of my comments on his unprofessional conduct of [...]

THE ARTS FORUM

The Arts Forum offers an occasional page of related topics intended to sensitize students and the general readership to neglected areas of our social history and our rich and diverse cultural traditions. Ameena Gafoor is the founder of The Arts Forum and founding editor of The Arts Journal, a peer-reviewed critical Journal devoted to fresh [...]

The Roop Column – GUYANA AT 42 – A Midlife Crisis

INTRODUCTION: Many public speakers like to use the phrase “Children are our Future” but in reality I believe children are our today. We have to nurture them in this disconnected world and teach them that if we want things to change, we have to change things. By this time in our life as a country [...]

Acting Chief Justice Chang’s remarks reinforce the concept of separation of powers

Dear Editor, I’m hoping GINA’s Head, Dr. Prem Misir, who once wrote a letter supporting the right of the executive branch of Government to question the decisions or rulings of the judicial branch, read the reported comments attributed to acting Chief Justice, Mr. Ian Chang, “OP distances self from Rohee’s comment on the judiciary,” (Kaieteur [...]

Peeping Tom – Just Let them Say It

I have said it privately and I will now say it publicly. I do not believe that we need any polygraph machine to help us decide whether the President withdrew from the Cabinet Meeting when the Sanata Complex deal was considered. The President said that he left the meeting and I believe him. I take [...]

The world food crisis — we reap what we sow

Dear Editor, Big shots in suits are now talking about agriculture in a new way. For a couple of decades or more, international movers and shakers — the people who want to cause seismic changes in the world — have been determined to remove rural poverty in the Third World, by getting farmers to de-camp [...]

Food crises and Guyana

Dear Editor, The country’s Government doesn’t really care about its poor people. The high cost of food is going to hurt our country badly. There will be a significant rise in crime, more families will suffer, and our country as it is can only get worse. Why is rice so expensive? Do we not produce [...]

AFC Column – Independence – fears and tears…Guyana 42 years on

By Cathy Hughes, Executive Member I know what an emotional time it was, the end of a long and bitter struggle against colonial domination, the culmination of a bitter fight by our valiant forefathers who argued vehemently for the right to create an independent nation state, our ability and capacity to define for ourselves who [...]

Murder and Mystery – Death on a ship of secrets

- Someone lured Jean Khan to her doom at the Bartica foreshore a decade ago… By Michael Jordan If you were to visit Bartica, you would see an ancient, half-sunken vessel jutting out of the river, in the vicinity of Triangular Street. It was a ship of secrets, some say; a haven for rapists and [...]

My column – Fear stalks the land

A man is never aware of his situation until he sees himself against others; an athlete is not at his best unless and until he competes with others of his class. These thoughts crossed my mind when I got caught up with the news last week, and the news was not coming from Guyana. For [...]

The hilarious antics of the PNC, AFC, and GAP

Dear Editor, Having lost the last general elections convincingly to the PPP/C, the PNCR is up to yet renewed tricks. It was hilarious to read that PNCR’s Robert Corbin has now recruited AFC’s Raphael Trotman and GAP’s Paul Hardy to join his comical bandwagon to petition CARICOM on governance and petty issues. It is clear [...]

A rainforest to save

By Robert Semple (Taken from the New York Times) The other day I went to a meeting to hear Harrison Ford talk about saving the rainforests and ended up listening to a man who has a rainforest to save: Guyana’s President, Bharrat Jagdeo. The occasion was the announcement of a new campaign to protect the [...]

The move by the joint Parliamentary Opposition

Dear Editor, I wish to applaud the move made by the joint Parliamentary Opposition to work together to ensure that the plight of the Guyanese people, during these recent times, is highlighted and addressed at the regional level. I believe that this act of mature, sensible and responsible political leadership demonstrates a positive sign for [...]

Blame the Government – Corbin is shifting the goal post

Any decision, once unexplained or unannounced, seems to be a crime, and this has been the case with two transfers effected by the Police. Two ranks have been transferred to hinterland locations, and as soon as the decision was taken by the Commissioner of Police, there was the familiar cry: “Blame the Government!” Many people [...]