OPINION: Police midnight visit, and the Carter Center present

Last Updated on Sunday, 20 July 2025, 20:19 by Writer

By GHK Lall

WIN’s Mohamed, Guyana’s police, PPP’s Jagdeo. It should be a harmonious cocktail. Has turned to be an explosive one. In chapter 4 (could be 5 or 7, I lost track), of this political horror show, which side has it right, who is on the side of truth, justice, the constitution, and the venerable Guyanese Way. Relative to the latter, it has been a grim ordeal to decipher what it is, and then to navigate whatever it is. In fact, what the ongoing saga of WIN’s Mohamed reveals to Guyana and the Carter people, and the enthralled foreign legion is how the PPP Government has its own ideas, own standards of what is truth, justice, and the constitution. For needed assistance, dial Mr. Anil Nandlall, AG, SC, MP, JP, and such and such. In today’s Guyana, a one-lane story has three sides.

Mohamed spoke with vigor and angst: “This is a clear case of political persecution…” No way, José. Not with a man like Bharrat Jagdeo (dr.) with the keys to the kingdom in his hands. Dr. Jagdeo then weighed in: ‘no! not political persecution, but obligations to probe reported perversions of justice’. I recommend him to be the new director of America’s FBI, such a noble and righteous character this fella Jagdeo is.

For their part, the lawyers had their say –my client is being victimized and criminalized unjustly. In one word: innocent. It follows what lawyers would have said for such missionaries as Charles Manson, Ted Bundy, and that man of mystery, Yorkshire’s Jack the Ripper. Now that everyone has had their day in the Stabroek Market Court, what does all of this say? After removing the layers of gobbledygook, airballs, spitballs, and goofballs, what is really going on in this beloved Guyana loved less daily? It is time for me to have my say. Please don’t come for me.

I bend my mind for a moment only, and for the sole purpose of sober conversation, to the matters at hand, as they unfolded, as reported, and in the same sequence. A vanload of police ranks in the middle of the night seems to be an overreaction, even overkill. I ponder if that fateful last word (overkill) would have featured, may feature in time to come. Happened before for lesser luminaries. There’s the old resisting arrest, or reaching for an object, or just being available and momentarily vulnerable. Recall Orin Boston. Matter done. Case closed. Move on to September 1. Neat, with all eventualities managed appropriately. The Carter Center can take comfort in its report, scathing to be sure. Who cares? Threat gone. Go to the polls.

A vanload of police. Armed police. The middle of the night. A former friend (that’s the worst). A friend now dreaded political opponent (worst than worst). Why so many? Why so armed? Why that time? Why that citizen? Why for obstruction (distortion) of justice? Why and when did obstruction of justice mutate into a capital crime? I should be in the media for having so many questions. I should be one of Guyana’s leading politicians, especially Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, with giving the back of the behind as responses to those questions. Questions like those, and issues involving people like WIN’s Mohamed, don’t deserve the time of day. The stock answer of Jagdeo and his ilk to what they would deem frivolities. Incidentally, on a matter of this high-profile nature, it is not the best time for the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Clifton Hicken, to maintain such a low profile. With respect to Mr. M. Ramotar (I give him a promotion) the police public relations master, such a high-intensity development concerning such a high-level citizen and with high velocity implications, is a matter for Commissioner Hicken, or to lower the bar, Crime Chief Blanhum. It is not the time for police PR. It is the time for police brass. This is not Burnham time. Nor Rudy Giuliani time. But then I realize that it is still Jagdeo time. I take that on the chin.

What the Carter Center would think of this, where it could take it; well, that’s another coalpot of oil. Get sense, Guyanese. Connect the dots, make the connections. Do I have to do everything around here? If what happened to the WIN man, and the way that it did, can be happening while foreign observers are on the ground in Guyana (Carter folks), and so blatantly, then the style, standard, and sinister nature of the PPP Government shouldn’t need any additional explanatory details. Read and enjoy, Bharrat bhai. I call it an ostentatious exhibition of arrogance, an uninhibited display of disdain, foreign missions or no foreign missions. Foreign missions, be damned! This is election time. Get real. Get down. Get ready. Mohamed gets another taste.