THERE is this story I used to hear when I was growing up about a young shepherd crying "wolf" once too often.
The first time the boy cried "Wolf!" a crowd of concerned, compassionate people within the sound of his voice ran to his rescue, intending to kill or scare the carnivorous animal away from his herd of sheep.
When the people arrived on the scene, some of them no doubt breathless, they learned that the boy was only kidding.
The second time the youngster called out for help, he got the same response: People came out in large numbers, hysterically looking for the wolf to get rid of it. But as happened the first time, the shepherd was making a hell of a lot of noise for nothing. There was no wolf - he nor any of his sheep was in danger.
So the boy called third time around - and that's when the wolf really did show up and started to tear a sheep apart - no one bothered to even give him a second glance.
This story of the boy and the wolf came to mind when I started analyzing what we can call "the George Bacchus affair."
From the time of January 5 last that gunmen shot Shafeek Bacchus to death, George Bacchus started talking. Like an American who believed that going to the press is a means of preserving life, Bacchus claimed that he was a former 'Phantom Gang' informant and that members of that gang were really after him, not his brother.
Well, George Bacchus did have a lot to say. He implicated the three men, who have since been charged for murder, as being among five persons who were in a car that was seen near the Princes Street, Lodge home where Shafeek was gunned down. George Bacchus also claimed that Home Affairs Minister Ronald Gajraj was somehow linked to the 'Phantom Squad,' which for the most part has been linked to the passing out of many of the suspected criminals and fugitives, including four of the five Mash Day 2002 prison escapees, who had terrorized Guyanese for more than a year.
As the debate, picketing and other types of anti-Gajraj campaign by the PNC/R continue, something else about George Bacchus struck me:
On the night of April 20, 1988 one Gainda Lall Singh of Plantain Walk, Vreed-en-Hoop, West Bank Demerara, was murdered.
Adrian Green, Michael Persaud, George Bacchus and Michael Teekasingh were arrested and questioned. Two of them, Adrian Green and Michael Teekasingh, were eventually charged with Singh's murder.
George Bacchus alleged that the police took him and Teekasingh in the Botanic Gardens, where they (the police) "bubbled" the two of them. Teekasingh died, but Bacchus survived.
Bacchus said he went to the US Embassy and lodged a complaint. The police then carried out an investigation, which proved negative - Bacchus' story didn't fit.
I am not sure that the George Bacchus story after January 5, the George Bacchus story of 1998 and the story of the shepherd boy and the wolf are linked in anyway. But I thought I would throw it out in the public domain for whatever it is worth.
G.L.