OPINION: GRA leak, free speech, democracy

Last Updated on Wednesday, 22 January 2025, 19:20 by Writer

By GHK Lall

Strange things happen in this town. Stranger things have happened elsewhere, but Guyanese can compete well in the strangeness department. Take the matter of Dr. Terrence Campbell. How quickly he progressed (declined) from the Man from Mahdia to a marked man. He now has a big bull’s eye on his back; all are welcome to throw a dart. Or worse. I can identify with that poison. For the details, just pick up the phone and make a call to my best friend, Vice President, Professor Bharrat Jagdeo, a man in a class and world all by himself. Why is it that those who cross the PPP Government’s path, cross up its narratives, always seem to end up in the crosshairs? Yesterday, it was the GRA delivering a slash at Dr. Campbell. What could it be tomorrow, the Guyana equivalent of America’s NRA? If there is any Guyanese who thinks that I am taking things too far, the phone lines are open. They may not want to hear about this country anymore, or of their beloved Ali and Jagdeo Babu.

Some papers slipped out of the GRA locked cabinet marked “Personal and Confidential.” In Guyana, that alone makes it a prime target for the private to be dug up and then made into a spectacle. It is strange, how only the file with the name Terrence Campbell went out the conveniently opened window and landed in the middle of the Stabroek Market Square. It was as good as reaching the Voice of America or Vice News. Remember that last one, and how everything and everyone went into total lockdown mode? Recall also that funny business involving US$214 million in audit findings that was so mathematically challenged that it was subject to radical surgery and then reincarnated as US$3 million. In Guyana, there is strange, then there is peculiar, last there is the curious. How do these things happen? I am beginning to think that Guyana is one big funny farm. The only citizen not laughing must be me.

Terrence Campbell opens his mouth, speaks his mind, and confirms the worst fears of Guyanese about “rubberstamps” and he is stamped upon. Subversive! A man to be more than watched, one to be put in his place. I like transparency in government. Not this kind, though. Think of something folks (editors, neighbors, political operators, and all-round orchestrators and manipulators). There was the GRA, and I find my mind flashing back to England’s King Henry II: “Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?” Please don’t target me, an atheist I have become. Henry II had his four horsemen who rode off to Canterbury for their grisly deed. Locally, Terrence Campbell is going to have to deal with Sir Godfrey Statia of Camp and Quamina on the Demerara. The GRA has a lot of answering and public handwringing to do. Perhaps, it is time that Mr. Statia returns to the paradise that is Florida. I hear that the oranges are juicier there at this time of year (cheaper, too). There is something called outliving usefulness, staying past one’s time.

Dr. Campbell’s tax documents can be released into the public marketplace, but not the national census figures. Is this a country operating in reverse gear? Campbell’s business can become public property, but not the supporting details of the Wales gas-to-cheap electricity project. The esteemed Commissioner of Police is not allowed to talk. Thus, I think it is only fair that Terrence Campbell be prevented from speaking out also. Now I must correct myself: this is not a society in reverse. It is one moving sideways in a daze, and upside down too. How do these lovely things happen against citizens who have some light to share? How Dr. Anil Nandlall is that the essence of basking in the glow of noble constitutional protections? A law-abiding Guyanese stands up, and lawlessness rains down on him. And didn’t one artificially bright man say that here there is respect for the rule of law? What law, whose law? I see the law of Freedom House and the charnel house operated every week by that glorious comrade leader, who has mutated into a hybrid of Stalin, Beria, and Molotov. Yeah, they like to hurl cocktails at those who offend their delicate sensibilities. Of course, there is the other one, who one day I believe is going to take off his shoe like Nikita Khrushchev and beat it not on a table, but the head of someone. See, why I love this place so much!

In this country stuck in reverse gear, a PPP comrade ‘lick down’ (runs over) a pedestrian on the road and an Iron Curtain of secrecy and silence descends across Guyana. Did I not say that this is a goddamn communist country through and through, despite John Hess, Excellency Ali, and Mohabir Nandlall’s palaver about democracy? Oh, my mistake, there are Christian Democrats. Therefore, some allowance must be made for Communist Democrats. For confirmation, please check with China’s newest warlord, Xi Jinping. What price liberty? What is the cost of freedom of speech, Mr. Attorney General? If this is a democracy, then I will take Donald (not Ramotar). Or Vlad the Impaler.