Letter to the editor:
Dear Sir:
Another guy, from the same unashamed United Workers Party (UWP) and former minister for national security minister, Guy Mayers, has come out swinging at the United States government.
“Honestly I did not see the need or the sense in that investigation and the government actually had to amend certain laws to allow that investigation to take place. Now, how many times are we going to bend over backward for some person at the US Embassy or someone at the State Department who feels he is the world’s policeman?” Mayers asked.
I was tongue-tied viewing his comments on the evening news last night. Only to ask myself, has he forgotten what happened when twelve Saint Lucians were killed by local police between the period of 2010 and 2011 under his tenure? Or has Alzheimer’s taken over his mind causing him to forget who was in charge? How can someone say such a thing? Anyway, that goes to the very thought process that lacks a basic understanding of local law, regional treaties and global operational procedures, among other things, which I prefer not to disclose here.
Former minister for National Security, Guy Mayers. Photo courtesy thefloggblog.blogspot.com
Undeniably these are the men who Saint Lucians have had the misfortune to allow to acquire power and rule with sheer arrogance. Lately, arrogance and stupidity seem plentiful within the walls of both the opposition UWP and the Saint Lucia Labour Party (SLP) in managing the affairs of Saint Lucia.
My forthright conclusion is that both the UWP and the SLP should be replaced expeditiously from the corridors of political power in Saint Lucia and replaced with an interim group with the skill and ability to do what is right and legal to get Saint Lucia and the Caribbean region on the right track. But first let me set the basis.
How could Guy Mayers speak in such terms to denounce the US policy towards the Caribbean region and on the other hand awkwardly depend on US taxpayers’ money for peace, security and economic survival while he was in power? The Kenny Anthony SLP administration is also doing the same thing!
Is he advocating to abandon the Caribbean Basin Security Initiative, for example, which is largely focused on maritime interdiction of drug traffickers; and for the US to stop working towards closing the security, economic and political vacuum that ALBA, Iran, Russians and the Chinese are filling?
How would Guy Mayers feel having to live and do business in a hostile environment?
I don’t think that the SLP government is “bending over backwards” to accommodate the United States, even if Guy Mayers thinks that way. His conclusion that the investigation by members of the Jamaica Constabulary Force into alleged extra-judicial killings by members of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force (RSLPF) should not have happened speaks wonders. I can only hope that he has nothing to hide and that the report clears his nice and polite image, until now!
You see, when mouth open, story jump out! Based on his utterance, he may have well allowed further serious economic decline in the region to sour situations that currently exist, whereby economic citizenship or essentially citizenship for sale, could be more lucrative than money laundering, drug trafficking or human rights violations.
If anything, the SLP wishes the US would go away, and allow the region to return to pre-1983 and what led to the invasion of Grenada. Likewise it is obvious that Allen Chastanet’s leadership and absurdity is a common trait within the UWP from Guy Joseph to Guy Mayers.
If not, why would Guy Mayers shoot out to the heavens, when in office he did little to facilitate resolution of the allegations of extra-judicial killings and to speed up the inquests, and allowed the inquests to run their natural course as is customary in Saint Lucia. The prison is overcrowded, and a good example of “local procedures enshrined in Saint Lucia’s laws.”
This is inhumane for a former national security minister and managing director at Mayers Printing Company Ltd to think in such terms, bearing in mind that the current minister for national security, Victor La Corbiniere, is a complete waste of time — no different.
Minister for National Security, Victor La Corbiniere. Photo courtesy stluciatimes.com
However, thanks to Guy Mayers for exposing his thought process and to think that persons across the pond will buy his argument that he is “not anti-American” but in the same sentence “noted that the American president sits in the White House and supervises the slaying of another country’s national”, reference to the killing of al Queda leader Osama Bin Laden by US forces during a raid in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.
“They go into other countries, arrest their nationals and do whatever they want in the name of terrorism and if there are criminals terrorizing our little country and in a police operation these people get killed, you want to debar our police officers,” said Mayers. I don’t think there is any question as to what happened under Guy Mayers’ watch. I think his incompetence was vivid. Much the same as his utterance that the US move on the RSLPF is “highly ridiculous” and that the United States had appointed itself judge, jury and executioner in the matter.
The fact remains that Saint Lucia is excluded from the annual Tradewinds exercise underway in Antigua for “credible allegations of gross human rights violations.” And more embarrassing, Saint Lucia earlier this year was prevented from attending a human rights and trafficking workshop held in Saint Lucia. It is US taxpayers’ money and they have a right to say how, when, on whom and where it will be spent.
I suspect Guy Mayers is scratching his rear ahead of his comrades now that the report into alleged extra-judicial killings by members of the Royal Saint Lucia Police Force (RSLPF) will soon be made public information.
Guy Mayers, the UWP and the SLP to my mind are cryptic lines of code that Saint Lucians can best do without, in exchange for an interim government who can better understand the rule of law, the practice of democracy and have the ability to provide economic reliance for the people of Saint Lucia and the Caribbean at large.
I thank you!
Tori Fatal
