Dear Editor,

Forty years ago the United States of America and Great Britain conspired to impose the system of Proportional Representation as a form of governance for Guyana. This system of governance worked successfully, in serving the wishes of the two superpowers, to marginalize a significant section of the Guyanese people.

I cannot believe that a one-time head of government of the United States of America can now pontificate that the system of Proportional Representation serves to marginalize one section of the Guyanese people at the expense of another group. All of the persons reading this clip of news on the various evening newscasts were not born at the time this now condemned system of governance was imposed on the Guyanese people. One detects the respect these newscasters have for the views of this visiting gentleman.

It galls to listen to the supposed wisdom of this visiting gentleman now telling us that we must ditch this system after his people gave us that recipe for our well-being.

Where do these people get off? I challenge anyone to point to one single country where the United States of America successfully assisted in crafting a political system that primarily took into account the interests of the people of that country and which the USA sought to "liberate".

If anything, the USA has been very successful in leaving only misery and conflicts behind whenever and wherever they ventured to Americanize other peoples.

Much ado is being made about the trafficking in persons, TIP. What is the name of the practice where a self-described uno numero country goes around the world stealing under-developed countries' richest resources, teachers and nurses? Can the USA explain why they would recruit me from a back-water country to teach American students Mathematics, among the other science subjects? Rather, it should have been the other way around. I would have thought that these back-water countries cannot offer tutorials in these disciplines and that the USA would be sending their teachers with all the advanced knowledge to teach us. This must be trafficking in persons. Talk about stealing intellectual property rights.

As an aside, I was amused to hear a presidential candidate and leader of a party claiming to speak for the dumb and the deaf, inform the nation on television that solid waste generates propane gas. What are the oil companies doing about cashing in on this natural resource?

In the words of Bill Cotton, Pip! Pip!

Yours faithfully,

Rudolph D. Mahadeo