OPINION: In open letter season: mine to AG Nandlall

Last Updated on Saturday, 25 July 2026, 2:29 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Guyana is engulfed in grief. Adding to that grief are the graphic images. A female conscientious objector arrested. Unmenacing. Nonthreatening. Peripheral. Innocuous. But arrested. In the grim circle of tragedy, the rule of law on display. Is that the law at its majestic best, AG Nandlall? In a quest for truth, a government minister came out with her own version of truth: Big Brother is watching. Big Brother is ready. Big Brother will act with authority, ruthless efficiency. Is that the rule of law, the operation of law, in action? The question(s) I raise before Guyana’s learned Attorney General, Anil Nandlall.

To repeat: this public service is addressed to AG Nandlall. He carries a weighty title. He is Chief Legal Adviser to the State. I should address brothers higher than him. It is an indication of the boiling disdain within when I first thought of who is to be the addressee of this petition. I settle for Mohabir Anil Nandlall. What rule of law and respect for law (and rights), sir? I get it: what the State says the law is, that is the law. So, if I say that neither president nor vice-president (not one) is worthy of quality consideration, should I begin to look over the shoulder for the police? I say this: let them come. Let the law live on. And, if I were to share here, or anywhere, that no minister of the PPP gov’t merits the kind of regard that inspires others to pause and applaud, does that rise to the level of subversion? Whatever it is, however defined and justified, Mr. Nandlall, know this one thing, of this be informed: it doesn’t matter. I don’t give a damn.

In the poignancy of national tragedy, there is the profanity of PPP gov’t vulgarity. Ms. Sherlina Nageer. A minister issuing dire warnings. The independent media barred. Is this democracy? Is Guyana really grappling with real tragedy? Is Anil Nandlall still pretending at celebrating something called the constitution? Or is a government giving an expo of its power, and its utter disregard for a time that grips and gores at the wounded soul of Guyanese? The confluence—cascading and ascending—of evils that now reign unchecked in this tortured land, this distressed citizenry.

I cast my mind back to Ms. Sherlina Nageer. Arrested. MP Sherrod Duncan. Arrested. Have Guyanese been converted to Muslims experiencing a taste of what it is to live in Narendra Modi’s India, AG Nandlall? Citizens remade into cockroaches? Have objectionable and undesirable Guyanese, Mr. Nandlall, become in their homeland the equivalent of foreigners in South Africa? Or, Mr. AG, Cubans that some people say shouldn’t be in Guyana, and others in Guyana run to order them out of Guyana? Mr. Attorney General Nandlall: are Guyanese, in their own country getting more glimpses of the condition of migrants in America, because of their own conditions? Today, it is at the point of a baton and a uniform. Before long, it could be in the presence of a mask and at the end of a machinegun.

To paraphrase Malcolm X: have the woman and man who stand for what’s right, for a call to justice, deteriorated in the eyes of their abusers to such a repugnance? What is there to fear from a placard held aloft? One not possessing a single stich in the frightening apparel of a makeshift weapon? What is it that must be concealed when a question is asked? About human sacrifices, Mr. Nandlall, at the altar of a vessel. And Mr. Attorney General, those condemned to be bloated and bloodied ghosts embalmed in the womb of a laden boat?

When a leader refuses to rise and inspire as confidence plunges, when trust has evaporated, then his term just did expire. In the midst of crude lawlessness (by the government), and cruder indignities under the umbrella of law (by the government), I turn and make one final stop before the man of law: Attorney General Mohabir Anil Nandlall. Whither the nobility of the law? Where’s benevolence of the State, its compact with truth and justice? What fate sacred rights as enshrined in the blood of heroes and martyrs? When the MV Barima went down, it shouldn’t have taken down other Guyanese. The MV Barima going down to its watery end should never have led Guyana to this grave state. It would enlighten to learn from my fellow Americans on how they interpret Guyana’s democracy, its honesty with the law.