IT looks as if the so-called 'phantom' gang, if it does exist, is giving the PNC/R a welcome reprieve from the constant reminders of its failures in government and of its role in the country's economic downturn and the culture of lawlessness that pervades a particular section of its membership and that is condoned by the party as a whole.
The big irony is that the PNCR which is now daily campaigning for the removal of the Minister of Home Affairs on the basis of allegations, is the very PNCR whose members/supporters/sympathizers not so long ago called criminals "freedom fighters," denied that criminal gangs were using Buxton as their haven after they had done robbing, beating, raping, kidnapping, torching and murdering innocent people, murdering policemen, engaging in carjackings and drive-by shootings and the destruction of people's assets, and, not least, demonizing members of the Guyana Police Force.
This is the same PNCR that wants Mr. Gajraj to demit office because it is alleged that Mr. Gajraj was linked to a group of people who saved this country from social upheaval by helping the security forces get rid of many of those criminals who had terrorized Guyanese by their commissioning of the above-mentioned crimes.
By its daily campaign, the PNCR is trying to demonstrate that it is a righteous party concerned about the upholding of the laws of Guyana.
Actually, the PNCR is expressing its anger that the criminals, especially those who robbed their victims of millions of dollars, were put away for good.
I guess it is only fair to expect that the opposition party will seize the moment - and the Bacchus allegation is one such opportunity - to turn people's attention away from, and hoping that they will at least temporarily forget, the recent and distant events.
Did those who oppose the PNCR picket Congress Place when the late Mr. Hoyte said in Buxton that there were no criminals hiding in Buxton? Or after the violence of January 12, 1998 when innocent people were robbed, beaten, stripped, etc.? Or after the July 3 storming of the Office of the President by its supporters?
Oh thou hypocrite!
Knowing the PNC as I do, I am convinced that attempts are being made to link all crimes speculated to have been committed by this mysterious organization and cause us to forget, if possible, events not so long ago in Buxton.
With the PNC/R stepping up its campaigns once again, criminal violence is re-emerging once more, and not surprisingly in Buxton among the other areas.
I am learning that one of the gang members was a bodyguard of a leading PNC/R executive and if this was so then this gentleman certainly warrants being investigated, as some members of the PNC/R have long been suspected by members of the public to have links to criminal gangs.
Yours faithfully,
Shanta Persaud