| …as residents vow “no retreat, no surrender’“Linden will never get back, post-18th July… things are not going to be normal for Mr. (Allan) Lewis’s children and the families of the other men who died. It is not going to be normal for people who lost their legs and eyes. People died, it is not going to be normal for a lot of us,” Regional Chairman Sharma Solomon declared yesterday, at one of several meetings held across the mining town, to update residents on the current situation.Traffic has resumed at the Wismar Bridge but tensions remained high in Linden yesterday.At the time of making the declaration, Solomon was referring to certain statements being made by Government about getting Linden back to a state of normalcy. “Linden will never get back to normalcy,” he emphasized.“Let me tell you something, don’t let nobody tell you about normalcy. Let me tell you what they calling normalcy, the seventy percent unemployment you must live with, that is normalcy… the one TV station you must live with, that is normalcy.”Solomon was alluding to remarks made by Presidential Advisor,Aaron Dell Jersey, Gail Teixeira, that only when things to return to normalcy will talks resume.The Regional Chairman was at the time addressing residents at Poker Street, Wismar, where the first of four meetings in the mining town was held yesterday to update residents on the current state of affairs. Meetings were also held at Blueberry Hill, the Four Corner and at Amelia’s Ward.At all the meetings the cry remained the same, “no retreat, no surrender’, as Lindeners resolutely maintained their stance, not to give up “the struggle” until Government accedes to their demands, and withdraws the “imposition” of increased electricity tariffs.“As Guyanese, we will act in a manner that is dictated by our constitution, which says we can demonstrate and protest, we ain’t doing anything wrong.“We left Wednesday last meeting saying to the Government, we are aware that there are efforts to derail these talks , we said to them on Thursday, that we were aware that things were going to happen on Friday…do not do anything to disrupt that. Lo and behold, the Joint Services dropped fliers…we had known it was going to happen, but we had spoken to some key people in the military, and police command, and we told them to hold, let Friday bear fruit, because we were convinced we already had the terms of reference to investigate electricity generation and distribution in Region 10. Because we want to know what BOSAI and them doing, the historical context, the pensioners – these things need to be investigated before we could talk about electricity generation and distribution.”Expanding on the economic programme, Solomon spoke of persons who wanted to come into Linden and invest in mining, forestry and other areas, and thus create employment in a matter of months.He spoke of massive investments with the capacity to provide some 2,000 jobs, especially for young people.The Regional Chairman alluded to efforts being made to ensure that Linden does not get past the state that it has been in for the past twenty years, and emphasized that Lindeners should not worry about Bosai and the call centre there ‘losing li’l work’. “Y’all got the potential to have more jobs than what you probably would have been losing.”Since July 18th, Linden has been in a state of upheaval, with constant clashes between demonstrators and the Joint Services, with the people demonstrating ‘zero tolerance’ for the latter’s tactics in maintaining ‘law and order.’Three Lindeners were shot dead by police during the first day of protest against the increased electricity tariffs which became effective July 1st. This led to escalating tension and more protest action.Several buildings were later torched, the most recent being the One Mile Primary School.A few persons were subsequently taken into police custody in relation to that incident while several other people, some purportedly innocent, were locked up, for various other offences.A number of damaged roads, blackened ruins where buildings once stood, and a heavy military presence, all tell the story of a town in turmoil.Pic filed as traffic at Wismar bridgeTraffic has resumed at the Wismar Bridge but tensions remained high in Linden yesterday. |
