GUYANA | Our military deserves utmost respect, President Ali, advises Lincoln Lewis

GEORGETOWN,  Guyana, May 12, 2024 - The cake feeding act by President Irfaan Ali to our men and women in uniform is unacceptable by any standards. First of all, our military force is a professional body that must command and receive the respect of this nation. 

They deserve nothing less and certainly far more than having President Irfaan Ali  in what is considered a public gesture, using his hand, to shovel food in the mouths of our military men. This action of his is unacceptable. It is degrading and compromises the professionalism and dignity of the Guyana Defence Force.

It must be noted that those who were subjected to this demeaning experience are men of African descent who continue to be targets for the People’s Progressive Party (PPP) excesses.  

This is a calculated and orchestrated effort to dimmish and demean their integrity and value; an effort to present a fake public image that all is well with the African community and Irfaan Ali. This by extension means the PPP which he and Bharrat Jagdeo head.

This is the same party that targets African Guyanese, ignores their elected representatives, and violates the constitution where African Guyanese stand to benefit in the main. 

A few examples come to mind: refusal to uphold “inclusionary democracy” as outlined in Article 13 and 149 C of the Constitution of Guyana; refusal to respect some unionised workers​’ right to collective bargaining as guaranteed in Article 147 in the Constitution of Guyana; refusal to respect the will the people in regions, neighborhood democratic councils, and towns where the PPP is not in the majority; the vendors and teachers’ issues.

Even if Ali wanted to celebrate his birthday with the military participating in eating his cake, why wasn’t it served in a plate or box as is more culturally acceptable and befitting of those being served. 

Even if Ali wants to consider his “hand-to mouth” style as an imitate gesture it is still highly objectionable to our men and women in that setting. ​Those being denigrated and subjugated ​should not allow themselves to get accustomed and comfortable to such ​relegation.

One must ask why did the Chief of Staff, Brigadier Omar Khan, subject himself and the military to such a belittling experience? Did Khan himself open his mouth for cake to be shoveled in or was he spared the indignities of this as well as a picture released to the scrutinising public.

I call on the people in general but particularly African Guyanese to stop this nonsense, this degradation of self and community.  What Ali and Jagdeo are doing is not an accident, it is the modus operandi of the PPP to continually seek to degrade black people and black culture.

During his premiership, Sam Hinds was made a puppet. Many will recall him attending a state function and being the only one served coconut water laced with kerosene oil. 

Last year this nation watched in horror after the death of Dr. Roger Luncheon how Bharrat Jagdeo sought to criminalise him and tarnish his record and decency. 

In eulogising him Jagdeo attributed the dead squads and wrong doings associated with his presidency to intellectual authorship of Luncheon.

The Jagdeo and Jagdeo /Ali regime are known to hire black men and women to be the front of their aggression against black people. Names such as Kwame McCoy, Joseph Hamilton, Mark Phillips, Jennifer Westford, Onidge Waldron, Juan Edghill, etc. 

Recently Edghill was caught on camera serving an eviction notice to Peter’s Hall residents in what the nation saw was two pricing systems, reportedly with Indians being paid a higher rate than their African counterparts to relocate.

The debasement by PPP leaders extends to African youth for whom they create further distractions away from development initiatives for young minds with the promotion of lewdity and the dancehall culture. 

This is aimed to mask their deliberate failure to create the enabling environment for our young people to grow and develop into productive citizens.

Further, this corrupt and dangerous PPP regime of Ali & Jagdeo has taken away the grant (subvention) from Critchlow Labour College that offer young people a second chance at securing a sound high school education and opportunities to enter the University of Guyana, Teachers Training College and other institutions in the public and private sector.​ 

The PPP has closed the Charles Rosa School of Nursing in Linden depriving those in the vicinity who wished to pursue this profession. However, they are quite willing to import nurses from Asia without proper parallel planning and consideration for training and utilising those closer to home who are our neighbors.

Instead of second opportunities the PPP is promoting fun and frolicking, placing the African community on the fringe of society, creating the environment for anti-social behaviours in order for some to survive and by various means seeking to bring African Guyanese to their knees politically, socially, economically. President Ali’s darn eyes pass us. We must reject this!