One thing that has always frustrated me about Guyana is the stubborn stiff-necked behaviour, the sheer pig-headed stupidity of us as a people: we keep making the same mistakes over and over.

We would recognise something is wrong and needs fixing, but we would make some lame excuse, turn a blind eye to it, and allow that wrong to be perpetuated indefinitely.

Take your Editorial of March 22 last for example. How many times have you not editorialised about the horrible crime situation in the country? And every time you fail to mention the one thing that must be done if Guyanese are to stop at a red light in peace. How can your newspaper continue to turn a blind eye to the possibility that Organized Crime has taken a stranglehold of Guyana, from among the top of the society to the bottom? We must confront the question that Organized Crime may have a grip on the society.

The President mentioned the fact that the society has too many guns. Where, how, why, when, who? are very relevant questions a newspaper should ask.

Some talk of lawlessness in the society, or a breakdown of morals and ethical standards. Clearly, these are massive problems. But the law cannot make good, moral, ethical citizens. The law has to find out where corrupt morals and ethics are stifling the society, and loosen that grip. It is in this crucial duty that the authorities are failing, and you, too, fail at this duty.

Your editorial lambasted the law authorities for being silent about some rather petty issues concerning the five who escaped from the Camp street jail.

Why, oh heavens, why is no one officially raising a hoot about that ugly serpent of Organized Crime that so slyly bedevils the nation?

That letter you published from the guy waiting in jail for four and a half years for a trial for the Mahaica Gas Station murder is a damning indictment of the very justice system that is supposed to protect the tax paying citizens.

One wonders if he is a scapegoat. And how many scapegoats are languishing in punishment because of their poverty and powerlessness.

Something is radically wrong with our country, Mr Editor, and I have a nagging suspicion that very powerful evil forces are behind this corruption of our society. Which brings me to beg the question: are the petty criminals being sacrificed on the altar of Public Satisfaction/Justice Seen To Be Done as scapegoats? I wonder in perpetual frustration.

Yours faithfully,

Shaun Michael Samaroo