OPINION: Bharrat Jagdeo -a man on the run, one that can’t hide

Last Updated on Wednesday, 20 March 2024, 6:26 by Denis Chabrol

by GHK Lall

The pleadings fell on deaf ears.  The helping hand extended, through encouraging words, was returned with double fisted fury.  In fact, whatever was attempted brought vitriol; the vicious came with a vengeance.  If that sounds like Bharrat Jagdeo, take a prize.  I believe that there is something in this life that is called payback.  There are some deeds that cause agitation in some watching places.  Dr. Jagdeo has had an unending litany of woes flashing before the world: the things that he wants to go away and die an early death.  The gods refuse to be kind to him, to cooperate.  I feel sorry for the man.  I pity this leader wasting away before the eyes of a nation, and now called to book before the whole world.

Of all the places that Bharrat Jagdeo is stripped to the bone, it is through a UN creature.  A committee dedicated to human rights, believe it or not.  The alarm for loyal Guyanese should not be only over the embarrassments piled on the PPP as a government and as a party, or the man who is the General Secretary.  It is about who led the charge about allegations of corruption and Jagdeo, and what that says.  It is the curtain parted ever so slightly, with this nation given a peek as to where things stand at high elevations.  Jagdeo is at the center of stage and storm, and he cuts one hell of a derelict figure.  I feel more than sorry for the man.  I pity him.  The more he summons the confidence to comfort himself into thinking that the worst of hovering, strangling issues have passed, the more they gain renewed life and come back to land on his shining head and haunt his shadowy existence.  All the money, all the assets, all the power, and it is a wretched man living in the webs of a dreadful existence.  I recall counseling him: bhai, do this business right, and everything will be alright.  Do it wrong, and the big people who play these games with the fate of nations (and their leaders) will spear with a prong and make into a sad song.  He didn’t care to listen; all that Jagdeo, the high and mighty, was consumed by was how to blast away and beat down and give the boot.  Now the boot is on the other foot, and the people doing the kicking are deadly serious.

What has the government done about those allegations involving Guyana’s honorable Vice President?  The questioner was an American nominee.  Neither the man nor his interest nor the object of his inquiry are accidental.  Guyanese should take note of that, most of all those in the PPP.  By the same token, the original female interrogator who brought up that sickening matter involving allegations from a Chinese businessman and encircling the honorable Bharrat Jagdeo was also not accidental.  America, oh America.  Are Guyanese paying attention?  Is the PPP listening, actually hearing what these Yankees are saying?  Since everyone is pretending at denseness, then the heavy duty falls on me.  The Yankees are terribly unhappy with the PPP Government.  Too much alleged corruption (there is that dirty word again), too much uncleanness in governance.  More specifically and sharply, the Americans are unhappy with Jagdeo.  Jagdeo has become baggage.  Ancient allegations of corruption against a former national leader, but now an even greater powerhouse, do not find their way into a UN forum dedicated to Human Rights.  But there it was: a slap on the face of man and government, people and country.  There could not have been a bigger and broader audience.  Who didn’t know before, know now.  Who didn’t care in times past had better take care now.  Jagdeo is spoilt goods.  I am, indeed, pained for the man.  My history has been of having to feel sorry for those who have borne false witness against me.  There is no joy in any of this, only the regret that a man who had everything going for him, could have done so much, went down the path that he chose.

Jagdeo’s first responder, the no less honorable Mademoiselle Teixeira, only made matters worse.  She didn’t put her foot in her mouth; she put her mouth in an unmentionable place.  Nobody did anything.  So, the police couldn’t do nuttin.  Where do Guyana get people like these from, and then put them where they are?  How is it that they last for such a long time?  Must be the culture.  Must be the weather and the environment and then the mores too.  It is time to wrap this up.  I cautioned Jagdeo: going overboard to do right by Exxon has its pluses.  But America is hearing about all that has gone wrong here under the Jagdeo-Ali tag team.  Institutions politicized.  Citizens pulverized.  Standards minimized.  A PPP supporter from the East Coast Demerara said it better than I ever can: dem maan dis cum bak in deh and de moh baad dan b4.  He said it, not me.  And lest Guyanese forget, there was that pesky, relentless fellow at the UN asking those punishing questions about the PPP Government and Jagdeo.  Indeed, there is a time for everything.  For Jagdeo, it is time to weep.