Commemorating Walter Rodne's 25 Anniversary.

Yesterday, Sunday July 3, came too soon in Guyana . One hopes that the juxtaposition that will be explained below will come again during the election campaign. If and when this glaring contradiction is revealed in the fever of the election battle, will the PPP become a casualty? Any decent voter faced with the Clement Rohee paradox of July 3, 2005, could only do one rational, logical thing – kick Mr. Rohee and his party out of office

The Sunday incongruity of Clement Rohee shows the level to which politics has declined in and under the PPP, a party on which this country had pinned so much of its hopes in 1992. But Mr. Rohee will not get away with his so-called clever delivery. The press is watching, the press will analyse and the press will condemn justifyingly.

Let's expose Mr. Rohee, one of the inflexible communists in the PPP, who in my presence was critical of Mikhail Gorbachev for his role in the dissolution of East European communism.

In Sunday's Stabroek letter column, Mr. Rohee writes about the democracy Guyana enjoys. It will take up this entire column to quote him. But his pen touches on the inhuman period of Guyanese history when the PNC ruled Guyana with an iron fist. But as his description moves from year to year, from period to period, from places to places and from people to people, you can't help asking yourself, “but Mr. Rohee what has changed in Guyana the past twelve years with your party in power?”

It is when we go over to another Sunday newspaper, the Kaieteur News, that Mr. Rohee is devastated and exposed by Moses Nagamootoo which ought to constitute a personal moment of shame for Mr. Rohee for which he ought to tender his resignation.

We will come to that below but let's stick with the enumeration of the sins of the PNC as told by a hierarchical actor in the PPP who comes across as a practitioner of democracy, Clement Rohee.

He reminds readers of the thousands that had to flee Guyana. He cites the cases of victimization and harassment. He deals with those who lost their jobs and were jailed. Of course rigged elections are given wide space in his long letter. He recalls the tale of forced contribution to the PNC rallies and fun-raising events.

Then he completes his painting of the sad story of Guyana under the PNC by observing that, “This was the period from whence the democracy we now take for granted emerged.”

You read Rohee and you know that his party has continued in the same vein as the PNC minus the torture and the murders. So you ask what is this controversial minister talking about when his party is Burnhamistic in its approach to power and governance?

So you dismiss the self-righteousness of Rohee which is typical of the PPP leadership that cannot come up with a magnificent record of achievement to attract voters so it plays the stuck record of 28 years of a big nightmare.

Then you pick up the Kaieteur News to read about the Julius Caesar-like conspiracy in the PPP that led to the bloodless assassination of Moses Nagamootoo. And you are struck by the political decapitation of Clement Rohee by Moses. Moses tells the Kaieteur News that as an executive member of the PPP, he was concerned about the visa imbroglio involving Rohee.

Let's quote Moses. “When Clement Rohee's visa was denied or revoked by the US, I raised that and asked: ‘Would Comrade Clement Rohee say why his visa has been revoked…why visas were going to be issued to him on a selected basis'?” Nagamootoo told Kaieteur News that in response to his pointed question, Clement Rohee refused to answer.

Now here is opened a new chapter in the visa fiasco of a senior Minister of Government. It is to a Minister's credit and in furtherance of his credibility to tell his nation that he was being victimized by the Americans because he disagrees with one or many of their policies.

A Minister has to be so stupid that it renders him ineligible to hold high political office as a Cabinet Minister not to tell his party colleagues and his country that his disagreement with the Americans has caused him to be denied a visa so that he cannot defend his country's and CARICOM's interests as Trade Minister.

One can only conclude then that this Minister is hiding something from this nation for which the government and the PPP must be held accountable. But it is paradoxical that he writes about the democracy that Guyana now has after being saved from the PNC yet he is exposed as someone who doesn't play by democratic rules.

The visa debacle becomes more curious with Nagamootoo's account of an inner party cover-up and it should be made an election issue. But let's get back to the claims of Mr. Rohee that we have democracy in Guyana.

There are two popular French sayings that academics and journalists love to recite. One goes like this; “The more things change, the more they remain the same.” The other tells us that; “People deserve the government they get.” Both are appropriate in understanding how a Minister of government in Guyana could be denied a visa from the American Embassy and is only allowed single-entry permits yet the government of that Minister is so contemptuous of the electorate that it refuses to offer the nation an explanation.

If democracy had returned to Guyana, then Minister Rohee would not have been in the Cabinet.

We did not safeguard the democracy we fought for so that explains why Minister Rohee can get away with a visa mystery. We deserved the government we got because we allowed Ministers like Mr. Rohee and Mr. Gajraj to get away with controversies after controversies.

Yes the Frenchman who coined the first saying was right; “The more things change, the more they remain the same. The further we move away from the style of the PNC 28 years ago, the closer we come to that style.

Mr. Rohee astutely failed to tell his readers that after nearly 13 years in government we still have one radio station. After 13 years of PPP rule compared to 28 years of PNC rule, Guyana stands as one of the most corrupt countries in the world. I wonder if Forbes Burnham was alive and ruling the PNC in government if he would have tolerated the ubiquitous, bestial and carnivorous tentacles of corruption that we see in Guyana today. Will democracy come again after 2006?