Protection: Let’s see where Guyana and America stand
Letters
Dear Editor,
Guyanese informer and whistleblower Dion Bascom has spoken. I look in two directions, and wait on two sources, to ascertain what the reactions will be, where things will stand. The directions point to Guyana and America, the sources I pinpoint are His Excellency, President Ali and Her Excellency, United States Ambassador Lynch. Will Guyana’s President resort to seeking shelter behind his now trademark ploys? Will America’s Ambassador to Guyana turn out to be the epitome of hypocrisy? I arrive at no conclusions, make no judgment. Not just yet.
Another Guyanese, a man with not such a heartening reputation, stood up and spoke out. George Bacchus did so, and he went down and out for the count. It is the one count from which there is no return. When he was so degraded an abundance of secrets died with him. Criminal secrets. Government secrets. Political and leadership secrets. Though secrets, it would be more accurate to assert that they are really not mysteries. They aren’t where I am. And because of that, I wonder about the Guyana Police Force’s member, Mr. Dion Bascom. It is but a short step from silent public servant to loathed public pariah. And then to the dung heap of Guyana’s remembered, but all too easily, too quickly forgotten, history. It is a dirty, brutish history.
But there is more than surmising about Officer Bascom, there is fearing for his safety, I ponder his security, now so fragile, such a thread hanging. In certain circles in this country-official, political, and commercial, he is all but good for a proper lynching. Yes, I dare to use that dreadful, harrowing word, so laced with ugliness and putridness. What we have here in this domestic inhumaneness wreaked upon brother by brother, and all for oil. Without delving too deeply into this, I recall and I remind my Guyanese brothers and sisters that the man from Galilee did say that he came to bring sword and division and fire. Well, those have taken the form, believe it or not, of oil in Guyana.
There is a lot at stake here, which is why I reeled in both Excellency Ali and Excellency Lynch. We have the Protective Disclosures Act of 2018 (thanks for SN editorial dated August 15), and the hour is now to demonstrate whether it is mere paper, or it projects the full weight of Presidential Power. Protect Dion Bascom, Mr. President. Do this one thing right, sir. I do not challenge, no sir. Rather, I honestly invite; nay, I humbly plead. Show to all Guyana what this President and Presidency is all about for a change. As for Her Excellency, the U.S. Ambassador, I understand the paramountcy of oil, and for me, it doesn’t have to be stated publicly. The fact that there is this conspicuous plenipotentiary restraint and silence roars from the rooftops for the likes of nonentities like me. But, Madame Ambassador, this is where those vaunted American values that I was taught so well, and absorbed so well (too well, I think) all come into the fullest fruition of motion. It is where the rubber kisses the highway.
For there is this conflict, this clash and contradiction, that now doesn’t have to be. It is about oil and the stir of the remarkable insights of precious human rights. See, Excellency, I did learn at the feet of masters. Now is the hour to prove whether this local base or that domestic shore takes precedence over what is a fundamental principle of the American way. I confess that I speak in tongues, and though deliberate, there can be no mistaking my meaning. For I believe that there is sufficiency of sagacity at Duke Street to identify very closely with what I place before one and all, be they Guyanese, American, or any other. If the Guyana Government and Guyana’s President do not have what it takes to stand for Dion Bascom, then America must. The Americans must show that they are not all talk, but deep down really real where Guyana is concerned, oil or no oil. I have said a mindful and mouthful, it is time for me to go. Protect Dion Bascom.
Sincerely,
GHK Lall