It is now less than a week since the release of the recorded telephone call between Mohabir Anil Nandlall, Guyana’s Attorney General (AG), and Kaieteur News reporter Leonard Gildarie. In the profanity-laced recording, one version of which has received close to 10,000 hits on the internet, the voice purported to be that of the AG is heard attempting to solicit the name of a young female reporter who his relative appears to have expressed a sexual interest in (“De man wan [expletive] de girl, man, the man tell me seriously he wan knock de girl”).
Personally admitting to financial impropriety (“I use some money from the government, Glen mek an issue of it I pay back deh [expletive] money long before he even mek de issue and he know about it because I pay it back”), and suggesting that those who use the newspapers as a “weapon” to attack the government might expect violent retaliation (“When you continue attack people like that and they have no way of responding they gun just walk with their weapon into that same [expletive] Saffon Street office and what come suh do and innocent Peter gun gah pay fuh [expletive] Paul in deh one day, me ah tell you innocent, me a tell you honestly man to man that will happen soon..”). Given what appear to be threats against Kaieteur News, proprietor Glen Lall has since taken the recording to the police, an understandable move in light of the cold-blooded murder of four Kaieteur News workers eight years ago. And this sordid matter is getting picked up internationally, with the Austria-based International Press Institute releasing a statement expressing deep concern at the apparent threats issued against the newspaper. Continue reading →
