Taylor, Blair and Mrs. Espin: Crazy people, crazy world

Mark Benschop publicly asked me on his internet radio programme how I would vote on same-sex marriage. I don’t believe in same-sex marriage, but have no objection to the legalization of homosexual relationships. I can’t imagine giving a yes ballot for homosexual marriage but deep in my philosophical mind, I don’t think I can cast a vote against it. I am too driven by the anarchist dream of the overflow of freedoms to human beings to vote against same-sex marriage.
I think I will abstain. I know I will abstain if the referendum comes to Guyana. I am still open to the arguments as to why we should legalize it here and can be persuaded to vote for it. I will never vote against it. Most definitely, I will either go for an approval or abstain. When it comes to the death penalty, my mind is made up. In a referendum, I will cast an abolition ballot.
But I honestly believe that for uncivilized humans who are guilty of war crimes, they should be executed. You can call my attitude a contradiction, and maybe it is in fact indefensible. But I will stand by what I believe in.
I repeat; men and women who commit horrible war crimes as what we saw in Nazi Germany, Kampuchea, Bosnia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, should be shot if found guilty.
I wrote on this page before and I will write it again – I endorsed the verdict to hang Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi President was an inhuman character who was fascinated by putting people to death. The news last week that Liberian President Charles Taylor was sentenced to fifty years for war crimes in The Hague is a miscarriage of justice. Taylor financed the rebels in Sierra Leone, and those insurgents made the Nazi killers look like priests in angels’ clothing.
I would warn anyone who wants to see a film on the terror carried out by Taylor’s armed gangs not do so. You will experience serious mental traumas. Killers as young as nine, ten and twelve went on a chopping spree in that country. The preferred method of killing people was to chop them up or take off either their upper or lower limbs.
These child soldiers actually forced children to murder their parents in front of them. What happened in Sierra Leone with these child killers has outdone the murderous acts of Nazi Germany.
It is a crazy world in which we live; Charles Taylor who murdered thousands, fought for his life at his trial and got it. It is a crazy world indeed when you read what Tony Blair told the Leveson Inquiry last week in the UK. It is a judicial commission into the phone-hacking scandal by the newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch.
The former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, acknowledged to the commission that he developed a friendship with the media mogul while he, (Blair) was Prime Minister, but he never extended favours to Murdoch, neither did Murdock ask for any.
Does Blair expect anyone in this world to believe him? The columnists have had a field day with Blair’s deceit. Long before Blair became Prime Minister, the volumes on Murdoch’s zest, flair and appetite for control of the seat of power in the UK were mountainous. Mr. Murdoch has failed to come out favourably in any biography written on him. You have to look real hard to find a book, article in a journal or magazine, or newspaper commentary over the past thirty years that painted Murdoch in a positive light.
Blair admitted after he left office, that he became godfather to Murdoch’s baby daughter. Tony Blair must be admired for his courage. After being exposed for his surreptitious involvement in taking his country to war with Iraq, Blair was not afraid to tell the world something that perhaps only he and Murdoch believed.
Finally, this week, the daughter of the President of Cuba, Raul Castro, Mariella Castro-Espin gave an interview to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in the US. After endorsing Obama for a second term, the President’s daughter made herself a complete fool by telling Amanpour that Cubans are free to dissent and they will not be arrested.
This is a country where it is illegal to protest or picket and the consequences are mandatory jail. Cuba to date has the largest number of political prisoners anywhere in the world. Castro-Espin got an American visa to travel. Last year, Che Guevara’s daughter got an EU visa to speak in London. But the average Cubans are not allowed to leave.
Castro-Espin was apologizing for fascism in Cuba.