OPINION: Guyana attacked: let sanity, process prevail

Last Updated on Wednesday, 29 October 2025, 18:00 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Capturing and getting confession out of them. They, the alleged Evil Eight, who wrenched to shreds Guyanese sense of serenity on a tragic last Sunday night in October 2025. I congratulate the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and its network of helpers. I call upon Pres. Ali: please rethink, sir, that call for the death penalty for the guilty. Let adversary be about barbarity and every manner of monstrosity. But let Guyana not be included in that death penalty company.

It is at weeping, weakening times like these that the frailness of echoed words make itself known. To the Bourne family, I am sorry. The accident and stoppage of circumstances that took the life of six-year-old Soraya. May her soul rest well. May the family rise above this abominable cruelty, this scything sweep of the Grim Reaper notching another victim full of bubble, whose presence and absence are now locked in the wilderness of a vacuum. Will Soraya Bourne go down in history as the first casualty of Maduro’s undeclared war on Guyana? It is at times like these that, in the wellness of our souls and our deep love for this country (and all its peoples) that the power of words felt deep inside well to the top, and whisper ‘I am, we are, all Guyana is with you’ to Soraya Bourne’s family. For one grand, blessed molecule of a moment, there is that grace of all Guyana.

Eight alleged terrorists, with the unbelievable staggering. Four Guyanese are alleged to form part of that destructive cell. I hold my head and reel again. No way. Except that what occurred may be over my head in the simple contemplation. Again, I commend the GPF, but with two conditions now inserted. First, the right perps are in custody, that due process with all steps fully followed. I can speak to being falsely accused, criminalized. If there is one innocent among that alleged Evil Eight, let Guyana not live with the blight of rush to judgment, that national expression of justified rage that condemns clean hands with dirty ones. These four foreigners and four Guyanese are entitled to being held as innocent until proven differently. What to think of the four Guyanese involved in this horror? They, too, must be beneficiaries of the cleanest and straightest processes. Let the fullness of fairness attach itself to every development that is a part of this troubling episode in Guyana’s existence. A bomb detonated in the heart of Georgetown. A little child dead. Seven others scarred and traumatized. Eight families horrified and hurting from their cold rain of their pain that will take an eternity to fade. And Guyana not the same again. May it be for the better.

I hear Pres. Ali’s call for the death penalty. I used to be for it; now distance from it. There’s too much killing, there’s too little resolving. Now there’s an opportunity for Guyana to manifest universally that it is not about vengeance, but justice. Even amid red hazes of rage, the vision is about bringing the alleged perps to justice. That even in death, even in the traumas of injury and the punishing psychological toll that a bomb blast can inflict, a death can leave in its wake, that Guyana is a country of magnanimity. Guyanese are a race that take pride in mercy. May these sentiments simply said prevail through the responses they glean.

In preparing to leave, there is something that bothers. The main suspect, a Venezuelan named Daniel Peodomo visited Guyana before, likely for purposes of surveilling and mapping the territory. Senor Peodomo is also reported to have links to criminal entities across the border. Hence, a man who should know that his timeline of insertion and withdrawal is extremely tight. He arrived at 8 o’clock on Sunday morning, did his dastardly deed just before 8 o’clock on Sunday night, yet there he was lingering in Guyana over a day and a half, 36 hours, later. An arrogant amateur who sticks around to claim credit? A bumbling perp who lurks to be close enough to observe the reactions to his crime scene handiwork? Or a chilling message from Caracas: this is the length of reach, a hint of the power that can be unleashed, and a warning of what more could be?

I struggle with the fact that Daniel Peodomo did not hightail at high speed out of Guyana in the same unobserved way by which he came, given that his murderous job was done. Why hangout in Guyana when the terror was delivered, when the road of escape was clear? No question that he has deeply embedded brethren here. Yet he seems to be alone, and acted like a man lost. Instead of a circus now, Guyana can show how civilized it is.