Guyana Observer News

 By Keith Williams

Today I wish to talk about the recent comments by the General Secretary of the PPP that his party is open to power sharing, but refuse to enter into any such arrangements because they cannot find any party in the opposition they can trust for such an endeavor. This is a patented example of the ass backward reasonings that emanate from the PPP leadership. These leaders, within the ethnically structured reaches of their psyches, seem to be imbued with a God Complex that produces these patterns of hubristic thinking. In this context, they arrogantly reserve the right to determine who should be accorded the privilege of exercising power in the society, and the criterion for such choice is, obviously, only those who will shuffle and be obedient to the dictates of their commands.

 By Stella Ramsaroop

As I read through the various articles on my chosen topic, I was so upset that I was physically trembling. The anger, frustration and sense of betrayal on behalf of another were overwhelming. It was difficult to get a firm grasp on the depth of the ramifications of what I was reading. Since I started writing this column again, Freddie Kissoon has made several inferences in his column about the treatment of the former First Lady, Varshnie Singh, by her husband and President of Guyana, Bharrat Jagdeo. So I decided to sit down and do some research of my own into this subject.

President Bharrat Jagdeo has ordered the state-owned National Communications Network (NCN) to cease broadcasting on Channel 21 in Berbice which he said was done without his knowledge. Office of the President Press and Publicity Officer Kwame McCoy told Stabroek News last evening that the President had ordered NCN to discontinue the broadcast on the second channel with immediate effect. According to McCoy, Jagdeo, who holds the portfolio as the Minister of Information, was not aware that NCN had started broadcasting on Channel 21 in Berbice in addition to Channel 15. “With this [new development] being brought to his attention, the President has ordered that NCN stop this,” McCoy said. He added that it is unclear at this point whether any sanctions will be imposed against the management of the semi-autonomous body.

“It was just an unfortunate experience for someone to return home and have this kind of treatment from the police. I read the papers everyday from New York and I see and I hear all kinds of stories, but never thought that I would have had a personal experience like this from a senior officer of the Guyana Police Force,” the words of a US-based Guyanese teacher. The woman has moved to the police Office of Professional Responsibility and the Police Complaints Authority for redress over what she alleges is an indecent assault on her person by a senior police official.

-civic forum hears call for abolition, justice system review

The death penalty as a deterrent has been a spectacular failure according to Dr. Arif Bulkan, who said yesterday that government needs to abolish it as well as examine social conditions in the country that give rise to many of the murders perpetrated. The state of the criminal justice system has to be examined thoroughly, he said, noting that the issue of policing the criminal justice system is also relevant in any discussion on the subject of the death penalty because it points to efficacy. He noted his support for consultations on a moratorium of the death penalty, but advocated for research, saying that discussions often give rise to “the same kind of rhetoric.”

 By Rakesh Rampertab

Some individuals make for difficult subjects to write on. Linden Forbes Sampson Burnham is such a person. He is either well admired or passionately despised. Either way, or altogether, he remains, unquestionably, one of the Caribbean’s most controversial personalities of the twentieth century. Forbes Burnham was born on February 20, 1923, in Kitty, Georgetown, one of three children born to poor but strict parents. He received his early education from his father who was the headmaster of a Methodist Primary school.