Mayor Green: Friend of dictators, felons and crackpots
Wednesday Ramblings
Stabroek News
May 12, 2004
Should we begrudge Mayor Green his little jaunts abroad? It could be argued that to pay him US$50 a day to stay away is money well spent.
But hats off to veteran journalist Cecil Griffith whose Monday column City Council Round Up is rapidly becoming - through no fault of his own - the "Justice for All" of the printed word.
We must also remember that the kind of work the Mayor is doing overseas is so vital to world peace that how could the citizens of Georgetown possibly complain about their festering surroundings?
His record of embracing all creeds goes back to that misunderstood evangelist Jim Jones whose noble efforts to create a utopia here were aided by Green's PNCR.
And back in 2000, Green's Good and Green Guyana party elected Kim Jong Il as its honorary leader.
For those who may have forgotten, Jong Il is the North Korean despot who is now finishing off his father's work of starving his brainwashed people to death. His other feats, according to the BBC, include writing six operas in two years, and personally designing the huge Juche tower in Pyongyang.
"South Korean accounts portray Kim as a vain and capricious playboy, with permed hair and lifts in his shoes, and a penchant for foreign liquor."
A North Korean website says "Hamilton Green, leader of the Good Green Guyana, visited the DPRK from February 15 to 19, Juche 89 (2000) at an invitation of the WPK Central Committee."
And when announcing Jong was to be the honorary leader, Green said, according to the site, that registering Kim Jong Il was the realisation of the unanimous desire of all his Party executive members and Party members to further strengthen the fraternal relations of friendship between the two parties. His party, he said, will actively learn from the achievements and experience made by the Workers' Party of Korea in its building and activities under the leadership of Secretary Kim Jong Il.
Green is also a supporter of convicted felons including 83-year-old Sun Myung Moon who in 1978 served a 13-month jail sentence for income tax fraud. Moon has described homosexuals as "dirty dung-eating dogs" and said Jesus' greatest error was his failure to get married.
The US National Council of Churches says Moon's theology is "incompatible with Christian teaching and belief". But that did not stop local church leader Bishop Juan Edghill from attending a Moonie-sponsored function here in on August 30, 2003.
What is strange is how Green can be so close to the Moonies given their hatred of communism, and still have Kim Jong Il as honorary leader of his party. As in domestic politics, he is playing off both sides for a free ride.
Meanwhile Green spent Christmas in Israel courtesy of Moon's US-based Inter-religious and International Federation for World Peace, for a "Heart to Heart Rally for Peace" that seems to have really helped the conflict.
And the Washington Times, a paper owned by Moon, reports on a Jan 25-29 2004 conference on...yes, you guessed it... world peace entitled "Good Governance for a World in Crisis." where Green declared, "Change is the most frightening experience for mankind. Reverend Moon has shown that he is a catalyst for peace. ... Now it's no use talking, we've got to act." (He might as well have been talking about the garbage piling up in his city.)
And Green, not content with just being a Moonie, is now supporting that lunatic (and thankfully dead) L Ron Hubbard.
In October 2003, he opened the new California headquarters of The Way to Happiness Foundation International, a group inspired by the teachings of Hubbard.
This invite was connected to a visit by a team of Canadians who came to Guyana in 2002 to distribute The Way to Happiness book to every household in the country.
Ram Jagdat of the Canadian branch of the Way to Happiness claims on the group's website, "Prior to the distribution of the booklet, Guyana was reeling from an unprecedented high crime wave, with people in fear and many in terror. But since the distribution of TWTH, there has been a dramatic drop in the crime rate. People can walk the street again without the intense fear that formerly gripped the country." If only it were that simple.
For the record Hubbard was also a convicted felon and serial liar of gigantic proportions.
In February 1979 a French court concluded that Scientology was a business and not a religion.
A Time magazine article reported that "By late 1985, with high-level defectors accusing Hubbard of having stolen as much as $200 million from the church, the IRS was seeking an indictment of Hubbard for tax fraud. Scientology members 'worked day and night' shredding documents the IRS sought... Hubbard, who had been in hiding for five years, died before the criminal case could be prosecuted."
And what does Green have to say in his opening speech at the new headquarters? "This is one medicine that the doctors and the chemists cannot put a label on, 'be careful of an overdose.' Your Way to Happiness is an appropriate prescription - let us have it dispensed in generous doses throughout the world."
DDeL launches new brand
A new brand of rum is to be launched for sale in the Middle East by Demerary Distil Ltd (DDeL). It will be marketed especially in Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states.
'We are very excited over this new product,' said a DDeL spokesman. 'It is to be called 'Svelte' to reflect how smooth it is. It is non-alcoholic so we hope it will prove to be popular with all the different peoples in the region.'
It has already been test marketed in Afghanistan with promising results. The new product is created using a special process which is kept secret even from the directors of the company.
'It's the only way we can function as an organisation," said the spokesman. 'It's a bit like America. Yes, we feel that Rum Svelte will be a best seller in the Arab states and all over the world. We are looking to dominate the market. And even if they don't like it we are going to force it down their throats."