Things about Guyanese fascism I didn’t know
August 12, 2011 | By KNews | Filed Under
Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
The PPP Government has been in power nineteen years. In these two decades, many fascist and cruel policies have crept up on us that we simply didn’t know about and don’t know at the moment that they exist. If you think we had dictatorship under Burnham, then read the next line. You face a mandatory prison sentence for unlawful assembly if found guilty.
I honestly could not conceive a government can be so cruel until I found that out in one of the magistrate’s courts two weeks ago. If Burnham was as bad as the PPP makes him out to be then all the PPP first and second tier leaders would have been in jail under both Burnham and Hoyte. The last time I got arrested for unlawful assembly was outside the National Assembly in a street demonstration against the budget in 1989. They locked me up for the night then released me the next day.
I wasn’t charged for unlawful assembly. How did that change to the law creep up on us under the PPP? From Dr. Jagan right down to the little boy in the PPP’s youth arm, unlawful assembly was a common practice by the PPP against the PNC Government. Back then it didn’t carry automatic imprisonment upon conviction.
There should never be a mandatory prison term if found guilty on a charge of unlawful assembly. I could understand an arrest for committing violent acts during an unlawful assembly, but for the act itself to result in jail is downright fascism. No other Caribbean country, I presume, has this kind of draconian legislation.
History moves in strange ways. Chavez thought he was the king of Venezuela until he got apoplexy when he saw the results of the election to the National Assembly. Overall, he got less votes than the opposition. It is doubtful that he may win the forthcoming presidential contest.
Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for thirty years, had to be wheeled into court on a stretcher. He suffered global humiliation as the pictures were flashed around the world. His sons, charged with him, were confined in a prison cage. Mubarak is facing the death penalty.
These were powerful and rich men in the Middle East just months ago. The same can be said about Gaddafi and his sons. They were the crème de la crème of Libyan society, basking in power and wealth. Today, if they leave Libya they will be arrested. If they stay in Libya, they face eventual defeat and a firing squad.
Just two months ago, Rupert Murdoch was one of the globe’s most powerful oligarchs. In Britain, he was the real monarch. It would not be an exaggeration to say that in political circles in the world today, he is a pariah.
In Guyana, the time is drawing near when those who impose fascist legislation upon the people will end up being tried under those same Hitlerite rules.
Mr. Ravi Dev frowns on descriptions like “fascist,” “Hitlerite,” and “evil” being applied to the PPP Government whose excesses, extremism, authoritarianism, and repression he currently obfuscates in his writings. Mr. Dev should tell us when and where in the PNC Government under Forbes Burnham that he so despises, unlawful assembly resulted in definite jail if the accused was found guilty.
One can imagine the hubris and hauteur that penetrate the collective psyche of the PPP. Arrest and trial can never visit them. They will forever win election. They greet predictions by their critics that they will face prosecution after the 2011 poll with contempt and derision. But history moves in strange yet poetic ways.
Basdeo Panday was the owner of the UNC until he was voted out of the party’s leadership by his own members. So assured was Patrick Manning of his invincibility that he called a snap poll two years before it was due. He lost and today cuts a pathetic figure in Trinidad.
In Guyana, men and women in the PPP continuously sermonize their supporters with myths of the Burnham dictatorship. But that bell is rung out, that song is sung out. Young Indians do not know about Burnham, they don’t know about PNC dictatorship. All they know about their country is what they see. They see Ed Ahmad who shipped 29 tons of stuff to State House being arrested by the FBI. They see the sexual abuse of young girls by powerful politicians. They see the theft of billions of the Guyanese people’s money by these very politicians. And they will vote them out of office and into the Camp Street prison.