Latest update March 19th, 2024 12:59 AM
Dec 12, 2018 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
A few months back in a conversation with Lincoln Lewis, we agreed that the APNU+AFC government was practising a type of politics, a type of governance that was hardly different from its predecessor, the PPP.
Lincoln said that at least the regime is not like the PPP in that they do not arrest, jail or kill opponents. These were my words to Lincoln; “These are early days yet; when Jagdeo started out he didn’t jail and kill his critics.”
After getting in power, the APNU+AFC power-holders began to show signs of hypocrisy, power intoxication and bully-boy tactics that were so reminiscent of the reign of the Jagdeo/Ramotar cabals.
Two early signs emblazoned the political landscape after the PPP lost power in May 2015. One was the almost secret salary hike for ministers and the second, which for me was a far greater dangerous harbinger of what was to come, was the colossal extension of the barriers around Parliament.
Let’s describe what we have now and what existed under the presidency of Jagdeo and Ramotar. Some people in this government are making the PPP look like boy scouts when the PPP ruled.
In 2012, WPA’s Member of Parliament, Desmond Trotman, tabled a motion in the House to have the barriers around Parliament, when it is in session, removed. The opposition had a majority in the House so the motion was carried. At that time the barriers were erected from Hadfield Street to Croal Street crisscrossing Brickdam on High Street. Believe it or leave it. This was the area that the cordons could have been found. Just two corners – Hadfield Street to Brickdam, Brickdam to Croal Street.
And important to note; police allowed traffic to flow through the barriers. Today, blocks after blocks are cordoned off stretching so far that you will not believe it if you haven’t seen it. We will come to that below.
After the APNU+AFC got into power, Trotman lost his seat in Parliament. Since July 2015 when the barriers were vastly extended, Trotman said not a word even though for three years he appeared each week on the WPA’s television programme named “Walter Rodney Groundings.” Trotman’s own government has contemptuously tossed aside his successful 2012 motion in the House but Trotman never ever uttered one word about this depravity.
This same Trotman is now a GECOM Commissioner.
Speaking for myself, if he couldn’t say even one word about the horror show that goes on downtown when Parliament is in session, then I have no confidence in this man to be a principled commissioner. This is my opinion.
Today the metal frames stretch from Princes Street to the Stabroek Square on Lombard Street. And from Regent Street on the Avenue of the Republic way down to Princes Street at the confluence with Smyth Street.
It is not only ugly paranoia that is at work here but sadistic mistreatment of thousands of honest citizens who use that area to get to their place of employment, homes and to other places like the hospitals, the stores , the courts etc. To see the confusion when Parliament is in session is to see how dictatorship can grow from a spark into an all engulfing flame.
The barriers are one of the worst nightmares you can ever imagine in a traffic situation. To the east, the back-up reaches the Bourda Market areas. To the north, the traffic congestion extends way beyond Lamaha and Main Streets. To the south, the back-up affects the flow of traffic way beyond Charlestown touching Sussex Street in Albouystown.
It is so easy to imagine the situation because you are talking about the bowels of the city where hundreds and hundreds of vehicles have to take another route. To get to alternative routes, the traffic slows down to an extremely horrible rate so the back-up has to be incredibly long.
Not one organization has come out against this manifestation of sadistic edicts. All types, all categories of people are affected but not one soul is prepared to tell those people responsible for the traffic terror that they are clowns unfit to rule a country in the 21st century. And who are these people that are responsible for this affair?
Well, the police carry out the instructions. The instructions come from those in Parliament. And who are these people that we call parliamentarians?
These are the people that on each occasion, the Speaker urges them to behave themselves and conduct themselves with decorum. Not one school child in a survey would say he/she respects our parliamentarians after they see how they conduct themselves inside the House. But I guess dictatorship grows when a nation becomes sheep.
Listen to the man that is throwing Guyanese bright future away
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