Guyana Observer News

I was married according to Hindu rites to Bharrat Jagdeo since 1998. In 1999 he became President and I the First Lady. During our marriage I was not allowed to work and did not receive proper maintenance or care, financial or otherwise. The First Lady’s office is a myth that I created because of a need. It advocates on behalf of the voiceless and receives no government funding or any type of assistance. I left England in 1997, where I was working as a paralegal for a top 5 law firm and earning a very good salary to come to Guyana to assist my father with a land case. My intention was to serve my country, Guyana, as a lawyer. Doing free work for poor people and a few paying cases so I could earn a living. I had also aspired to enter politics as a servant of the people perhaps as an MP. Bharrat and I had a deal before we got married that we would work together, to move Guyana forward, but that never happened.

\Guyana is a country with serious balance of payment problems and as a result depends on funds offered by or sourced through international funding agencies, many of whom are located in developed western capitalist states. Recently Guyana was fortunate to gain a renewed commitment by one of those agencies, USAID. Through this financial support we will see over US$13 million being injected into the areas of health, economic growth and governing justly and democratically for another year. USAID provided a breakdown of how the funds will be dispersed; stating that $8,319,281 will be allocated to area of health, $2,809,000 to economic growth and $2 million will go towards governing justly and democratically. The commitment of USAID towards ensuring that the Guyanese people receive much needed help in the sectors earmarked for disbursement, highlights the fact that development is viewed by USAID as a holistic activity that must continue even within the constraints that exist in the current administration.

Within recent times I have passively watched the Alliance For Change (AFC) after vocally expressing my utter disgust with the incompetence of Raphael Trotman, Sheila Holder, Dennis Patterson and Cathy Hughes who as African Guyanese have done nothing to represent the interests of Africans who have overwhelmingly voted for the party. Lin-Jay Harry-Voglezon did try to impress upon me that this incompetence is due to the constrain of the “psychology of wrongness” I did express admiration for Khemraj Ramjattan and Gerhard Ramsaroop who have been looking out for the Indian interests who is a minority in the party. Having read Ramjattan’s response to Dr. David Hinds in Kaieteur News (14/8/2010) it dawned on me that the Indians in the AFC do not suffer from a “psychology of wrongness” but that of a “psychology of entitlement.”

President Jagdeo's FAKE MARRIAGE to Varshine Singh

 By Freddie Kissoon

There is an eruption of anger in the WPA and a mutiny inside the mind of Dr. David Hinds over the organized visit of Mr. Jagdeo to Buxton. Three dimensions of the analysis need to be focused on. One is the psychological chagrin of Hinds himself. He is from Buxton and as someone who fought for Guyana’s freedom and was jailed for three years for his bravery, his rage is understood but it should not take centre stage. More important are the other two aspects of the event. One is the direct involvement of Buxtonians in the success of Mr. Jagdeo’s presence. I believe the word, “success” is appropriate because there were no visible manifestation of protest in the village. The crucial argument in this entire affair is the accusation of David Hinds, the WPA and African rights activists of the insult of the presence of power-holders in a village that symbolizes the historical role of African Guyanese in the evolution of this country. It comes at a time when those very power-holders have designed and pursued an agenda of discrimination and marginalization of the African political economy in this land.

By Michael Jordan

Now that the guns are relatively silent, and the killing spree seems to have ended, this is perhaps as good a time as any to look back at some of the unsolved cases that sprung out of the country’s crime wave over the years. And perhaps, none of the cases is quite as strange as the saga of Mohamed Hassan Ibrahimi. Ibrahimi, an Islamic cleric from Iran, arrived in Guyana in 2002. Eighteen months later he had married a Guyanese wife and had established the International Islamic College for Advanced Studies, located at Lot 42 B United Nations Place. He was also the school’s Director. ne day in 2003, Ibrahimi turned up at the Kaieteur News. He was drenched in blood and explained that he had been robbed. But then, Guyana was in the throes of violence and that attack was soon forgotten. It was in 2004, when the Islamic scholar and his wife, who lived in Queenstown were expecting their first child that their lives began to unravel.