Deportee wants to share experiences with young Guyanese
Kaieteur News
December 31, 2006
A deportee, who has been living in Guyana for the past three years, says that he has changed his life. He says that he has learnt from his mistakes, and would now like to be able to tell the younger generation what he has been through and help them go down the right path.
Michael Andre Bentinck, 34, spent 20 years of his life in the United States of America , before being deported in 2003.
He served seven years in jail on a drug charge and for unlawful possession of arms and ammunition.
Bentinck said that he would like to reach out to all the younger people, to share his experiences and spare them from having to go through all of the things that he has been through, and the problems he is still facing to this day.
“When I came back to Guyana , my goal was to go to the schools and tell the kids about the experiences that I had, so that they wouldn't go down that path that I went down,” Bentinck said.
He said that there is no such opportunity to help the youth, and if he was able to help a child before that child ends up in prison, he would do so.
“We got enough deportees in this town that doing good…they could speak to the people and the children…People don't listen, but I want de children to listen, cause so much children going to jail in Guyana ,” he said.
Bentinck said that as a child he wanted to grow up and be someone very successful, but he takes full responsibility for the decisions he made in his life, and he has learnt from his mistakes.
“Every man is responsible for his own actions…I decided to go down that path. When I finish doing my time over there, am I not supposed to be a free man in Guyana ? I spent 19 months in immigration when Guyana was not giving travel documents, back in 2001, but when bin Laden blow up de place, deh tell me that my travel documents ready,” Bentinck said.
He said that it is very difficult to get a job, since persons seem to always discriminate against deportees.
“I already did my time, why I got to go through this? I can't get a job in this country! I tried to get jobs at many different places. The first thing they want to know is where you get you accent from? How long you live abroad? When they know that I'm a deportee and I lived over there for 20 years, I don't hear back nothing about the application,” he said.
Bentinck expressed his grief at not being able to see his only daughter anymore, since he is in Guyana and she and her mother are living abroad.
“My child-mother is a perfect girl. I have one daughter, Wendy, who I really love, but they are far away. Experience has taught me a whole lot. When I started doing my time in the prison, I regretted what I did,” he explained.
Bentinck said that he was always a target for the local police, and has had many confrontations with them.
“One time the police (in Guyana) roll up, search me, they found my ID alone and they start beating me just like that, and they only stop when I tell them that I gon report them to my magistrate family,” he stated.
Bentinck also said that he has a friend who went to the immigration office to get a passport, and an employee there told him that he does not like deportees.
“The guy told him plain…I don't like deportees, and my friend is a Guyanese, how could he feel nice about that?”
Bentinck thinks that a change needs to be brought about, because there might be deportees coming back to Guyana who don't get any support, and they may feel that they don't have a choice but to make a life for themselves by engaging themselves in activities that are against the law.
Despite all the difficulties, he said, he is grateful for all that he has. He also said that he is one of the lucky ones.
He now has a job, a girlfriend, and most of his relatives are living in Guyana and they stand by his side. (Nadia Guyadeen)