Beating of Indians must stop!
The criminals in Buxton have once again dug up roads and set fire to vehicles. This time it is because a wanted criminal was arrested by the police - mind you no case of so called "extra-judicial killing". Though the media reported that minibuses are stopped, drivers and occupants beaten and robbed, it has not said that the people being beaten, robbed and in some cases, killed, are Indian. What we have in Buxton is a band of criminals targeting Indians.

When will the media stop the pussyfooting and have the guts to say what is really happening - that Indians are being harassed daily, being robbed, and being forced to migrate? Eusi Kwayana's call after the violence perpetrated against Indians after the 1997 election
- "This beating of Indians must stop" must be shouted from the housetops. When will the PPP/C muster the voice to scream, "This beating of Indians must stop." When will the PNC come out of its racist mode and go on televison and say, "This beating of Indians must stop." And the Guyana Council of Churches, the Maha Sabha, The Central Islamic Organization, The Guyana Human Rights Association? When will you take to the streets, when will you demand from the police and army officers camped in Buxton, that, "This beating of Indians must stop"? When?

A step in the right direction?
Finally, finally the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting has listed television stations for strong warnings because of violations of their licensing agreement. A step in the right direction? Let's see what happens when there are further violations. Let's see if the Director of Public Prosecution will have what it takes (I'm tempted to use the b word) to carry out the law.

I noted that in the list of violations there was one referring to Mr. Kwame McKoy implying that the PNC was involved in "recapping the plunder from recent robberies." In the Stabroek News of 6/28/02 a letter written by Jason Black also makes this claim. Mr. Black says that "after every big robbery the PNC/R were observed making sizable deposits, which they have subsequently vehemently denied." It would be helpful if Mr. Black can give dates and what bank the deposits were made in and by whom.

And once this information is given, there should be a full scale investigation. Large sections of the population have long claimed that the PNC is behind the killings and robberies. That the terrorists hide out in the PNC strongholds of Buxton, Nabaclis and Friendship that those communities protect them and repeatedly prevent the security forces from carrying out their investigations, that the PNC has much influence in these communities, suggest their involvement in the crime directed at the Indian population. This must be investigated.
Rohan 

The priority must be to find these criminals before they shoot down all our good men and women. President Carter, for whom I have the greatest respect, has it wrong in his recent analysis of Guyana's crisis.

Dialogue between the two major parties is not the answer. Personally I am Fed up with hearing about talks with Mr. Hoyte. Who wants to talk to him anyway? The President has more pressing problems to deal with rather than wasting several hours a day in dialogues. For what? For the PNC to understand that they have lost an election and that the place to have dialogue is in Parliament.

For too long leaders both locally, in the Caribbean and

further a field have bent over backwards to please the PNC. Enough of that. Needed more than ever are strategies to find the murderers. After they are found, the brains behind their cruelty could be exposed. It is interesting to look at this pattern of violence sweeping Guyana and see the similarity in method use by the barons and mafia style killers whose Government was not any political party.

Some of these strategies have been forced on us by the recent events and were needed much sooner. These include the use of the army and operation Tourniquet. But more needs to be done. The reward money is not bearing fruit because of the fear associated with disclosure. Of urgency is the need to provide citizens with identity protection programmes of a meaningful nature.

We need to move from "Tourniquet" to "Counter Attack".

I support the call from Mr. Royston King for more support for the police from the private sector. The private security firms need to revisit their security measures given the types of attacks that have been happening. All businesses should unite to have insurance companies provide insurance for protection. If done collectively the cost must be greatly reduced.

Instead of rhetoric and dialogue, the police force needs high tech
equipment. It needs at least three search and rapid response helicopters to be kept in a secure area in each of the three counties. It needs advanced communication equipment. It needs bulletproof armored vehicles. It needs for every police officer to have a bulletproof vest.

Stop having our security officers from private services wear uniforms and let them have surveillance equipment to view their patrol zone from a safe and hidden area. Let them have access to a rapid response unit. The same should go for our police officers in those little patrol posts. It is better to be available for duty from their homes than be in those little stations waiting to be murdered. They should also wear plain clothes until the murderers are found.

In the meanwhile while we play the blame game, another police officer's life is hanging in balance. Another security officer's life is hanging in balance and we await the dreadful picture of a new family bereaved, either Afro, Indo, Chinese or another racial group of Guyanese.

I pray that the good men of the police force keep strong and believe in the power of God and good and that help will come to them. We need to pray for our officers, for the Commissioner of police and our President during this time of the mafia like operators in Guyana. But while we pray, please Mr. President, act urgently to secure and safeguard those who safeguard us.
Dr Dave Sharma
Dominica

Instructive to the Guyana situation
There's new racial conflict brewing in South Africa. During the years of
apartheid Indian leaders in South Africa fought side by side with the

African people to end the racist regime. The Indian community's fight began with Mahatma Gandhi himself being thrown out of the first class carriage of a train which later led to him refusing to use an identity pass which he deemed racist.

South Africa's 1.3 million Indians are descendants of indentured laborers who went there in the 1850s to work on the sugar plantations.

The current racism stems from South African playwright Nbongeni Ngema song "AmaNdiya" (Zulu for the Indians). It calls for "a brave man to confront the Indians". Many blacks had called into radio stations in support of the song. Nelson Mandela labelled it as "pandering to the same prejudices that underpinned apartheid". The racist pop song which called on Zulus to hate Indians was banned after the Broadcasting Complaints Commission stated, "the song demeans the Indian section of the population by accusing the Indians in sweeping generalisations of the oppression and dispossession of the Zulus. It constitutes racial hate speech with incitement to harm. The lyrics are inflammatory, inciting fear among Indians." (The Broadcasting Complaints Commission in South Africa might have a word or two for the Advisory Committee on Broadcasting here). And a leading columnist in the

Johannesburg Sunday Times said of the song, "Similar racist songs and stories were sang and told before the Tutsi murders in Rwanda, and before Muslims, Serbs and Bosnians started killing each other. AmaNdiya smacks of the same jealousy of Jews that made it possible for Hitler to seduce the German nation into condoning his genocide."

There's a similar case brewing in Zimbabwe over wealth distribution and land reform. Because of Mugabe's dictatorial hold on power and his inability to institute sensible land reform, millions in that country are now facing starvation. The Indian population there is also uneasy because there is a brewing anti-Indian sentiment in the townships. It brings back memories of that other famous racist Idi Amin in Uganda and his expulsion of the Indian population in the 1970s.

I think these cases are instructive to the Guyana situation. Instead of coming up with constructive solutions to the problems of poverty, and real and perceived discrimination, we see leaders misleading their communities, pandering to demagoguery, to race hate, to ethnic insecurities, to jealousy, because this pandering is easier and the uneducated masses respond to them. It is time these leaders come up with programmes to encourage hard work and sacrifice in their communities as avenues to upward mobility instead of appealing to ethnic insecurities and manipulating the masses into violence and hate.

Thursday June 27, 2002