March 18, 2009, Kaieteur News, The "criminalized state" and the "incestuous state" in Guyana, by Freddie Kissoon,

March 18, 2009, Kaieteur News, The "criminalized state" and the "incestuous state" in Guyana, by Freddie Kissoon, 

It was Professor Clive Thomas who first propounded the theory of “The criminalized State in Guyana”. In five articles in 2003 in the Stabroek News (March 9, 16, 23, 30, April 6), he attempted to show that the state in Guyana is intricately connected to drug trafficking, money laundering and the underground economy.

Let us at this stage of the essay point out that it is important to note that “the state” and “the government” are two distinct agencies. The word distinct may not be the right choice because “the government” resides inside the physiology of “the state.” “The government” is the administrator of “the state.”

Governments come and go but “the state” remains. “The state” comprises the entire gamut of public processes that result in the continuation of the life of a country.

There is an important point to note about “the government” and “the state.” The former is legally in charge of the latter but the latter consists of powerful people that the former just cannot kick around like a football.

Two examples should suffice. President Obama heads the American Government. The American Government has to take into consideration what members of the military/security establishment feel about the American social and physical territory. The military/security establishment is so powerful that it can subtly undermine the governmental head if it feels that he is becoming too insensitive to the essence of the military fulcrums on which the integrity of the nation rests.

The second example is from released documents from the British Government which revealed that the military-industrial complex in the UK in the sixties was alarmed at the liberal policies of PM Harold Wilson and thought that he may have been too soft on communism.

The released papers also indicated that there were contingency plans to oust Wilson. Wilson no doubt sensed what was happening and “cooled off.” Some writers feel that John F. Kennedy was not as lucky as Wilson.

This essay is in response to a sound and plausible articulation by Peeping Tom last Monday. It has one flaw. This argument here is an attempted correction of that theoretical weakness. Peeping Tom incorrectly juxtaposed Thomas’ “Criminalized State” theory with his own, “The Incestuous State.”

The latter is not a theory and it does not even in a marginal way eat into the strength of Thomas’s promulgation. What Peeping Tom does is to separate the two but the two complement each other. Peeping Tom paints a scenario where a tiny wealthy cabal is intricately and neatly tied up with “the government” and these two social actors have penetrated “the state” where they use “the state” to enrich themselves in prodigious ways.

This is a sociological fact. This economic deformity has no parallel in the English-speaking Caribbean. It is a pathological descent into the worst kind of degenerate politics that is found only in banana republics. It is the most horrible manifestations of failed post-colonial territories.

But Peeping Tom was unable to detect the parallel existence of “the criminalised state” with the “incestuous state.” We are talking about a hydra-headed degeneracy. Governmental facilitators have allowed and processed the wealth accumulation of their incestuous links (in this context, the scope for ethnic trouble is really scary but more on that later).

But these governmental facilitators have corrupted “the state” through the labyrinth of drug connection, money laundering and the underground economy. Included in the underground economy are ‘friends” of the governmental oligarchs who are engaged in smuggling from fuel to beer to canned foods.

Joseph O’Lall had to die of a massive heart attack. It was inevitable. One is amazed that he didn’t die the same day he was instantaneously dismissed from his job. He told me that he believed that his zeal in tracking down and arresting people who were engaged in smuggling led to his downfall.

But listen to what he relayed to me when I put a realpolitik question to him as I interviewed him in his home weeks before his heart attack killed him off. I said, “But why invoke the wrath of powerful people in ‘the government’ by going after their friends?”

O’Lall was the kind of person that in common parlance we say is “wild.” He looked at me with fire in his eyes and said; “I don’t care whose friends they are, I doing a job, comrade.”

I fired back: “But look what happened to you.” His response was, “I coming back comrade.” He went back to where we all come from –dust.