Ramson causes walk out with 'false gods' remark
By William Walker
Attorney General Charles Ramson caused a minor but still angry walk out from the budget debate yesterday by members of the opposition when he suggested they were praying to "false gods." Ramson had just started his reply to PNC member Raphael Trotman and had picked up the parliamentary prayer book with the intent of torturing the opposition who had boycotted prayers since the last election. He stopped reading halfway and suggested that though some of them might be atheists, others he had known to be "kneeling before false gods" since he was a small child going to Brickdam Cathedral and he wondered why they could not submit to the house prayers. PNC Members John de Freitas and Andrew Goveia were outraged and demanded an immediate apology before walking out saying they were devout Catholics and would not accept this. In an instant, the mood in the chamber turned decidedly chilly and Ramson, who urgently revealed he had two sisters who "almost became nuns," made a mumbled withdrawal. But the damage had been done--to his speech. He trundled on without a proper audience; members on the opposition side began reading suddenly urgent documents and members of his own party began wandering out of the chamber. He complained about the spurious numbers of constitutional motions accusing a "cadre of lawyers" plotting to sink the AG's office under paperwork and of "making the country ungovernable" and stealing his employees and depositing them "somewhere on Croal Street." Despite his best attempts to be contentious, waving his arms around, heavy gold bangles jangling, all he got was silence. He quoted Martin Luther King in response to Trotman's assertion that the government needed to do something to help turn youths away from drugs. He read King's observations on "negro illegitimacy and crime rates... and that oppression is no excuse for these... I'm going to be a Negro tonight," Ramson quoted King, when he talked about his fellow brothers spending US$500,000 on liquor in one week. This Ramson connected to the importation of a big container of liquor "in a clandestine way" by the Guyana Public Service Union, which only wanted a "big sport... instead of looking after the wants of the people." He peered hopefully over his halfmoons at the opposition. Silence. But the PPP had the foresight of building schools, he proffered. "I may be wrong, but 1,000 [schools were built by the PPP] since taking office. "You are wrong," came a lone voice. Ramson had been prowling the floor before the speech in his wrap-around sunglasses and he had started out with the members' rapt attention and much good-natured heckling. By the end he was half-heartedly defending his office and too strongly praising its achievements. When he finally finished he was met with weary applause. In contrast, Trotman's studious speech was full of conciliatory remarks. He praised the industrious members of the judicial system from the judges almost down to the cleaning ladies and pledged to work with the AG's office on judicial reform. He questioned the nominal fines for money laundering and said that the "Thomas Carroll Affair," (visa sale scam) would be a perfect test for the government to get those gold bars back. He advocated the establishment of a drug rehabilitation centre and said if the "cocaine" ship MV New Charm was sold the proceeds should be used to set up such a centre. This was applauded by Information Minister, Moses Nagamootoo. He called for the government to set up some programme to rehabilitate prisoners back into society and pledged to work with government on building a new prison if it was serious. And Trotman even found time to praise the police officers killed or injured in the line of duty. But this one was too much for the PPP members, who cried that he was "spinning for Desi". Trotman said the judicial system was in a perilous state, describing it as a "national eyepass" with 35,000 backlogged cases in 1999 despite Ramson's promises last year to tackle the problem. He cited more of Ramson's promises: to publish statute law books; hire a retired judge; expand the use of court reporters (lately on strike). There was little or no evidence of any of these promises being carried out, Trotman concluded and asked the Speaker for some kind of penalty on persons who make promises with no intention of keeping them.
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