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Nov 15, 2016 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
There are little things that go unheeded that tell you about the nature of power-holders. There are little invisible, negative things about Barack Obama that tell you he is not that superbly great liberal idealist that billions think he is. If you look closely, you will see a side to Obama that maybe caused Hillary Clinton to lose the election. Here is a neatly tucked away fact about Obama that few in the world knew or talked about.
The Obama Government has prosecuted more government officials for leaks than all presidents combined. That information sounds unreal. In the age of the Internet, you just Google it and you will see the statistics.
There are little things in the APNU+AFC administration that do not augur brightly for the future. And you have to wonder if the persistence of old politics, old temperament, old attitudes after May 2015 will not bring about what we are seeing in the UK and the US. It is referred to as “Trump and Brexit. It means voters will turn away in disgust from the traditional parties and their allies.
For this commentator, Trump and Brexit came with the cruel, almost sadistic mistreatment of over 300 poor working class people who vended at the Stabroek Market Square.
Before Brexit and Trump came to Stabroek Market Square, the little things were there but they were too tiny for us to see, thus to put any importance on. The very first sign for me that we were in for arrogant displays of power by all of the leaders in the APNU+AFC Government was the extension of the steel barriers around Parliament building when the House was in session. If ever hypocrisy wore frightening eyes, this was an example.
In 2012, the very leadership of APNU and the AFC used their parliamentary majority to pass a motion to remove the barriers. In a scene reminiscent of the witches’ brew in Macbeth, those very steel barriers were extended to more streets in close proximity to Parliament after APNU+AFC came to power.
At the first parliamentary session of the new Government, I was there in the streets; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Outside Parliament looked like a war zone. Was this what I had campaigned and voted for? Then the television reporters came up from Capitol News to ask my opinion on some subject or the other and I pointed out the inconsistency of the new administration with their extended cordons. The reporter with a smile as broad as the Great Wall of China, said; “That’s a small matter Freddie.”
The nation, with the exception of Leonard Craig and Lincoln Lewis, paid no attention to the hypocrisy of the steel cordons, and then came Stabroek Market Square, and Trump and Brexit had started their journey to Guyana. We all thought the sudden eviction of over 300 folks from the lower income stratum was for reasons of health and orderliness. Just by a mistake, Guyanese found out that the eviction was planned by the leadership of the government way in advance, because they wanted to use Stabroek Market Square for the starting point of the float parade for the Golden Jubilee celebrations. Bread and circus so characteristic of the use of power in Guyana was on display and the poor who gave their votes so willingly became causalities of elite power. It is the story of history.
The vendors currently live a miserable existence at the junction of Hadfield and Lombard Streets. Termites have a daily meal of the palatial wooden structure where the float parade ended— Durban Park on Homestretch Avenue. I pass that infamous site almost every day, but it became more focused in my mind since Donald Trump was elected.
The consensus around the world was that Trump triumphed and Brexit occurred in the UK because the poor and powerless got nothing from the elites they voted for decade after decade. They had no choice but to put their fate in the hands of anyone who promised the Promised Land. If Trump and Brexit had started their journey to this country when the vendors were evicted, they touched down when civil servants were given a tiny salary increase.
I am sure my days of campaigning for the APNU+AFC coalition are over. If there is no Bernie Sanders or Jeremy Corbin in Guyana by 2020, I plan to stay home on election night, ignore the election, and watch one of the greatest movies ever made, with one of the greatest actors that ever acted; Peter O’ Toole stars as a sadistic Nazi officer who kills prostitutes in “Night of the Generals.”
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“The Obama Government has prosecuted more government officials for leaks than all presidents combined.”
Frederick, to my dismay, he also dismissed Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, a cadet soldier I personally knew at West Point,NY since 1973, and one of best field officers in the U.S.Army,post ‘Nam. He was dismissed after his team that included the younger brother of the purported Lt.General to be named as Trump’s National Security Adviser spoke ill of Vice President Biden.