Try thinking outside the box, PPP, and not always in the cup

Dear Editor,
I am really saddened to witness people trampling each other over in a desperate, if not jocular, attempt to get their forked tongues on that ‘green’ foliage. The process is as simple as ABC. They are taught keys words like rigged, electoral fraud, and democracy. Every time these folks speak these keys words, they are rewarded with a chlorophyll-rich diet; the epitome of positive reinforcement as described by the American psychologist B. F. Skinner. Unfortunately, most of these ruminants are from the legal fraternity. The occasional doctor may be found in the mix, but they are mostly at the level of the ‘bush doctors’ that ‘fit and proppa’ doctors frown upon.

So while I browsed the Kaieteur News recently, I saw the photo of Guyana’s most arrogant lawyer, who rightfully occupies the lowest level of the legal profession. This lawyer was once a part of ANUG, but of recent has been seen grazing and ruminating in PPP pastures. He was in the company of an ever-so-slightly more competent legal mind, whose girth testifies to an overindulgence in highly-fertilised grass. In his case, PPP pastures have been forever his home. The former is the lawyer, Timothy Jonas, who has the special gift of identifying APNU-AFC supporters. Just one sniff of the corner that the suspect passed and he will, with glorious certainty, establish if they are of APNU+AFC genre. One journalist doubted him, and he did not take questioning of his talents lightly. The latter is the lawyer, Sanjeev Datadin, an overinflated young man who lists the inhalation of noxious gases as being among his hobbies and frequently flouts same on the corridors of the courts in total contempt of their No Smoking policy. But the painful reality is that he is a walking time bomb for Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). He is a heavy smoker, has bad lungs, and is severely obese. He may wish to consider my pro bono advice since Coronavirus is roaming our streets.

As alluded to earlier, I saw the article titled, “Worst harm that can happen to a country is electoral fraud”. The contributors, as mentioned earlier, were Datadin and Jonas, whose limited intellectual legal minds summated would be less than one-tenth that of LFS Burnham. They were proposed and paraphrased extracts of Sir Paul Collier’s book, and were invited to analyse same with a view to having an intellectual commentary. The paraphrased snippet reads, “The Plundered Planet, economist Sir Paul Collier tells us that the corruption of an electoral process leads to worse economic policies. Interestingly, the Professor of Economics and Public Policy says that this is far more likely to happen in a society with an abundance of natural assets.” Just perusing this Kaieteur News article, the first thing that struck me was the two lawyers’ lack of understanding of two basic concepts of law, namely, allegation and culpability in a civil case.

I shall remind them, out of concern that they may repeat it in the future, to their detriment. The Oxford dictionary defines allegation as, “a claim or assertion that someone has done something illegal or wrong, typically one made without proof.” Culpability, on the other hand, is “responsibility for a fault or wrong; blame.” In civil cases, the legal burden is lower than that in criminal cases. Essentially, they are based on probability. Another important concept is prima facie, which is essentially, “based on the first impression; accepted as correct until proved otherwise.” I will now proceed to analyse the professional contributions of these two lawyers. The first legal ‘mindless’ to offer his take was Timothy Jonas. Without hesitation, he simply heard illegal elections and immediately rushed to LFS Burnham to state that he was involved in electoral fraud from 1970 to 1985, and Guyana having to live through the consequences of them. I proceeded to forensically peruse the article in a desperate attempt to find evidence to support his apparent statement of fact. There was none. No court of law has ever ruled that any of the elections from 1970-1985 was fraudulent. Jonas has not provided any evidence of electoral fraud, from 1970-1985. The fact is, there is zero evidence. LFS Burnham may have been involved in electoral fraud, but the burden of proof was not on him; it was on those who made the allegations. The fact is that 1970 was long before many of us were born. The fact is that PPP held power illegally from 1997-2002. The fact is that that election was illegal. That was established in a Court of Law by Justice Claudette Singh. So why did Timothy skip over that and rushed to allegations from 1970? The answer is obvious: He is a ruminating cow that was fed good-quality grass by the PPP. Therefore, as a consequence of such an asinine utterance, Timothy has been relegated to the back of the class, where he must place his finger on his lips and try to come up with good reason to convince me why he should not be made to repay his parents his law-school fees. By the way, what you have described about LFS Burnham are allegations. For the record, similar allegations were made against the PPP from 1995-2015.

Sanjeev Datadin was the next legal ‘mindless’ to take the podium. This was Datadin’s input: “Basically, you get surrounded by ‘Yes men’; you don’t get capable and educated people coming there, because you have no incentive to pursue that. Echo-chambers are dangerous because, essentially, an entire nation will become subjected to the limitations of the most powerful in the echo-chamber, which would usually be the leader.” Sanjeev, I trust that you have had a few reads of your comments. Please try to convince me that you have not made a prima facie case in describing Bharrat Jagdeo and the entire PPP cabal in this comment?

In conclusion, the article was introduced with a paraphrase from Sir Paul Collier. The paraphrase snippet read, “The Plundered Planet economist, Sir Paul Collier tells us that the corruption of an electoral process leads to worse economic policies. Interestingly, the Professor of Economics and Public Policy says that this is far more likely to happen in a society with an abundance of natural assets.” Timothy and Sanjeev had to explore this snippet, and commented on it as it pertains to Guyana. The two simpletons, in my opinion, had the ideal opportunity to demonstrate their intellectual prowess. Sadly, their cerebrally- tetraplegic and superficial thinking was highlighted in the simplistic view they took to such a complex matter. I would have thought that they would have initiated their argumentation by first examining context and argue the case akin to an academic, positing for and against the conclusion proposed by Sir Collier. Having made that argument, I would have thought that in exploring the body of the statement, they would have tried to determine its applicability to Guyana’s unique politics and economics, where many do vote on race and not on issues.

In my humble opinion, Sir Collier’s argument was based on a society that votes on issues, where the best party should ultimately wins, but they are denied on account of electoral fraud. Guyana’s politics is unique, where the best party may be denied a vote, simply because of race. I would have expected them to think out of the box and not in the cup, by providing limitations of such a position by highlighting international examples. It is well established that in some societies where there is an absence of democracy, economic issues are not their greatest tragedies. For example, Iraq under Saddam Hussein had bucket-loads of oil. There was no democracy, but economic development was not Iraq’s biggest problem; their biggest problem was the daily extra-judicial killings. Also China has no democracy, but economically, they are doing well. The populace’s greatest problem is freedom of expression. Russia is a similar story. The fact is that economics is not a true science; it is a science based on theories and not established scientific facts that can be tested in a lab. As a result, when making pronouncements on economic concepts, it is important to understand the context and the limitations. Unfortunately, these two clueless lawyers just saw “electoral fraud and economics”, and they rushed in like fools to try to relate it to Guyana without an understanding of the concept. Their only concern was their reward of a bale of good- quality grass from the PPP.

Finally, democracy does not start and end with voting. Democracy is a living process that requires nourishing after the elections. Under the PPP, there was a ‘Phantom Squad’ that murdered hundreds. There were sworn testimonies in a Court of law in support of this. There was discrimination and victimisation under the PPP, so much so that they refused to provide the data to the UNDP team which was investigating such allegations. There was massive corruption, based on Transparency International’s assessment. All these are necessary nourishment for a true democracy. I say this to educate those who call themselves ‘Guardians of Democracy’, and Roy Beepat, who has suddenly developed an epiphany to speak up for democracy, like if it dies at the end of the electoral process. Such characters are the reason why Guyana cannot make progress as a country, since they struggle to see beyond race and politics. A hundred years from now, if they are alive, they will forever view Burnham’s 1970 acts as the cause of Guyana problems. For Roy Beepat of Giftland Mall, who spends his entire day speaking of dictatorship, I would challenge him to step out of that PPP bubble and do some reading on elective dictatorship, and tell me why he does not think that is applicable from 1992-2011? I seriously cannot spend my day educating men who are old enough to be my father, yet speak at a level of that of a toddler.

Regards,
Dr. Mark Devonish

Source: https://issuu.com/guyanachroniclee-paper/docs/guyana_chronicle_e-paper_01_04_2020