Your cause is just - Hoyte tells Buxtonians
Denies criminals being harboured in village
Stabroek News
October 12, 2002
PNC/R leader Desmond Hoyte told Buxtonians on Thursday that their cause is just and denied criminals are being harboured in the village.
Hoyte was speaking during a meeting in the village called by the PNC/R on Thursday evening. Also present was Chairman of the Buxton/ Foulis NDC Randolph Blair who told the crowd that their village is under occupation by the army and they must "liberate" themselves.
According to Blair the villagers, would not allow it to become part of Camp Ayanganna, the GDF headquarters. He urged his villagers to "liberate" themselves from the occupational force of the GDF ranks.
Hoyte asked the crowd to observe a minute of silence for Clyde Duncan, whose body was discovered in a trench in Buxton three Fridays ago. Hoyte said he "was murdered not far from here. The security forces know that he was murdered and you know the man who murdered him, but they have put out a press release saying that Duncan was part of a gang who fired at them, we know that that is a lie."
Many Buxtonians believe Duncan was shot and killed by members of the GDF who have been patrolling Buxton for the past few months.
Emphasising that the meeting was organised to show that the PNC/R was in "total solidarity" with the people of Buxton/Friendship, Hoyte said it was "because today it is fashionable for some idiots to say that Buxton is a criminal village. Buxtonians are criminals, Buxtonians are violent people..... The People's National Congress and I reject this gross defamation of the character of the people of Buxton/Friendship."
"You ask for bread and (President Bharrat) Jagdeo offers you lead! You look around is he offering you employment? Is he offering you education and training? Is he offering you jobs? He is offering you bullets," Hoyte told the crowd.
He told them to protest against the injustice being meted out to them and to fight to achieve social justice for themselves and children.
Hoyte said "the government has been using the notorious black clothes police to carry out their nefarious objectives. People with names like `Robo Cop', `Gangster', `Golden Gun', `Toots', `Bald Head', `Baby Face'...... You don't expect policemen... to have those nicknames. You expect the criminals to have those names, and the very fact that they have attracted those synonyms to themselves tells you about the character of these people," he said.
In reference to the army's deployment in Buxton, Hoyte said that the army is unaware of their objective in the village.
He said in the recent operation launched by the army and the police to search homes for arms and criminals, they came up with nothing because nothing was there. "The informer was having a great joke at the expense of the security forces. But be careful when somebody mounts `Operation Death', it wouldn't be your death because as I said you cannot be destroyed.......... guns and force cannot pacify Buxton," Hoyte warned.
Hoyte rejected the notion that criminals are harboured in the village. "That is nonsense there is crime throughout this country, and crime cannot be limited to Buxton."
The PNC/R leader described the village as one with a "proud streak" with a history of great achievement and a symbol of the courage, dedication and achievement.
"Our ancestors left us at Buxton a glorious legacy, it is a legacy of the triumphs of the human spirit over adversities, it is a legacy of service, it is a legacy of success," Hoyte told the gathering. He added that the ancestors of Buxton made a huge contribution to the development and progress of the country, economically, socially and politically.
He told the crowd that as "new oppressors arise" to violate human rights "you will resist them. You have always resisted the oppressors, you have resisted them today you have resisted them in the past and you will resist them in the future."
Hoyte told the Buxtonians that their cause is a just one, "it doesn't matter who writes long letters in the newspapers, it doesn't matter who writes long editorials.., those people can't even find Buxton on the map but they want to analyse your problems and make prescriptions and the prescriptions usually are as follows, pacify Buxton, send in soldiers and police to kill all of you."
He said that it would not happen because there is no way all the persons could be killed, referring to a line in the song of a Jamaican singer which states, "killing me is a waste another rasta go tek me place."
He said the village was once a prosperous one, which was well laid out, well managed and very productive but has been rejected by the present government which allowed everything that would make the village productive to deteriorate.
"And it is because of this, today there are some 4,000 people unemployed in your catchment area," Hoyte said. Observers have pointed out in the past that the problems of Buxton pre-dated the accession of the PPP/C to government.
Hoyte also called for a $250 million socio-economic transformation plan for Buxton and its environs which he said should be implemented by the government.
He asserted that the problems in Buxton are not going to be solved by guns and force but require social transformation that will give hope to the community and serve as a model for the development of other communities.