I feel sorry for the Guyana Police Force (GPF). I am happy that there was neither injury nor, worse yet, any fatality in the matter now floating belatedly into the consciousness of the Guyanese public. There is a fishy smell in the matter involving the shooting at the Exxon vehicle. Almost two weeks of it getting stuck in the weeds, and now freed to make it to the surface. It gives off a sickeningly sweet odor, one hauntingly suspicious scent. That is, that something is not quite right. Even the toughest plastic, the Teflon-coated kind, on which nothing sticks, would have given off that overpowering scent that the whole story, the real one, is not being given to Guyanese.
The Exxon vehicle was allegedly shot at on December 2, 2024. The first seepage of what should have been breaking news only made its way before Guyanese on December 13, 2024. Before that, the whispers reverberated with a thunderous echo. Who was involved, why matters came to that fateful head, and why the blankness of complete information shutdown?
A vehicle with a linkage to Exxon, with even a cook or a babysitter on the inside, made into target practice is not something for the shadows, or to be kept secret. I am glad that no one got hurt. But how in hell was something like this expected to be swept under the carpet, and then gather dust there? From dust to dust does not work in such situations.
Guyana is too small, too tightly congested, too talkative. Eyes are everywhere. Ears are always to the ground to pick that foreign sound, one which could mean that something out of the ordinary is afoot. But this is what the GPF was striving valiantly to keep under the thickest blanket of secrecy. Practice makes perfect, but too much practice makes perfect jackasses of too many.
As said in the very first sentence, I feel sorry for the GPF. Its top management must twist and turn, jump high and then through basketball hoops, and still its members’ trials are not done. A bed of nails on top of a blazing fire must be walked. Oh, pardon me, but I forget to say barefooted, too. This is the sick result of politicizing of the GPF. It cannot act on its own. The GPF cannot (is not allowed to) speak for itself. So, there is cock and bull story about a stolen vehicle, what the Irish call the blarney, and Yanks describe as taking for a ride.
What was the prime reason for the shots that were fired? To bring the vehicle to a halt? Or to vent rage at what went before, the separating decision and action that sent a man into the realm of temporary insanity? Guyanese should not hold their breath for much of any honesty with what truly unfolded, and the underlying factors that led to that moment of gunfire. Coverup breeds coverup, and before long that becomes a culture that is seen as the cure for sticky situations as the Exxon vehicle. Here is a little comparison.
If any Guyanese were to turn up near any Exxon asset-people, place, product, anything of that sort-with the most peaceful of patriotic intentions, say a placard of protest, that will make headlines across this country, maybe even around the world. I can see and hear President Ali and Vice President Jagdeo jumping all over such a development, banging their shoe on the table (a la Nikita Khrushchev that old USSR warhorse ), and bellowing their outrage in the most distinctive terms: ‘we will bury you.’. Recall that investors spook easily.
Yet there was a man, who lost his head and let loose with warheads at an Exxon vehicle, and the people of this country are left to slumber in the dark. There is GPL blackout, and there is PPP Government blackout. Note that I didn’t say GPF info blackout. The GPF has its orders, and it has been good at following them to the letter. A little too good for my liking. Thank God for small mercies: to date, no GPL blackout hasn’t lasted quite as long as two weeks.
Where is the national security risk that compelled top secret classification of that incident? Or was that more about reputational risk, and PPP Government leadership embarrassment? Was the PPP Government and the GPF dealing in Exxon’s security as a priority? Or was the silence to protect the shooter, the first layers of coverup? I do not think that there is a single Guyanese who doesn’t know the answers to both questions. A plausible cover story had to be worked out, and it took almost all of two weeks to do so. If that is a believable cover story (the one about a so-called stolen vehicle), then I am Darren Woods or Alistair Routledge.
I hope nobody takes a potshot at me for advancing as I am doing. To the government and police brass, when a cover story must be the order of the day for that Exxon vehicle shooting, one that meets the necessity of swirling, thickening circumstances, then come up with a better one next time. In Guyanese: dis wan nah wukking. Start over. Come better the next time. Over.