ON the Freddie Kissoon Call-in Show last Friday, the subject was the senseless burning down of a hotel because people believed that an 11-year-old girl was murdered in the building. Many callers were so convinced she was murdered that you want to think they knew more than the police. I asked several of them to tell me how they knew about the way she was murdered. I got insulted because I refused to pronounce on the girl’s murder because I had absolutely no facts on the case. Then came the comments on the programme on YouTube and Facebook, and again I was insulted by some folks. I know my country. It is one of the few countries where rumours take on an evil dimension and spread faster that forest fires. I was walking my dog the next night (Saturday) on the seawall esplanade and I listened to this man telling his friends loudly how the girl was sacrificed, the rituals that were involved and how the police and the hotel management covered up the ritualistic killing. That tale spun by that man on the seawall was repeated hundreds of times Friday night, the following Saturday, the following Sunday, and the following Monday. The post-mortem has put an end to the evil dimension in Guyana’s inherent rumour mongering insanity. Will it happen again? The answer is yes. It happened in Cotton Tree in 2020 when two of the big names in the former APNU+AFC government went to Cotton Tree and spun a story that PPP supporters killed two African youths out of election joy. The Guyana Human Rights Association went on a rampage spreading the rumour. Sadly, Indian persons were beaten and their property damaged. That was in 2020. It happened in April 2025 in Tuschen. The evil dimension of the rumour mill caused a hotel to be burned and the owner’s house as well. It will happen again and one of the reasons it will happen again is because there is an insane instinct in sections of this country that want to topple the PPP government. This insane instinct was on full display in Cotton Tree, then with the Mahdia dormitory fire now in Tuschen. I saw a television interview with a PNC parliamentarian inside the Georgetown Hospital compound with an anti-PPP media outlet. What he said was sick and evil. He said that the PPP Government doesn’t care about what happened to the little girl and it is for this reason, the PNC must confront the government. I wish I could identify him but this asinine man will try to save face and sue even though he was seen by thousands making his immoral comments. I really don’t have time to waste by going to a lawyer to reply to someone who lost his soul. Here is where the tragic death of a little 11-year-old girl was being used for narrow political gains and the vulgarity, immorality and degeneracy was as clear as a sunny day. From the time that girl’s death was made public, the vultures in the opposition parties, the anti-PPP women groups and some civil society organisations began to invoke the ghost of Cotton Tree and Mahdia. Can we prevent a recurrence? I am not a political adviser to the government so I cannot comfort them by telling them it will not happen. I am an academic. I have to respect what I was trained in. And my analytical mind tells me it will happen again. When it does happen, you will need the political skills of someone like President Ali. So what did the President do? He narrowed considerably the latitude for certain sections of this society to create evil. He met the request of opposition and family. He said: “I will abide by what your specialists pronounce.” And their specialists said that the girl died by drowning. No marks of violence, no sexual contact. We must not shy away from pointing to relatives who said things that helped to create wild curiosities. There was no cotton wool in the child’s ears. Why would someone who loved the child say that? If the person that said that did not see cotton wool, then why say it? Once again innocent, truly innocent citizens going home from work to enjoy happiness with their families were attacked. Innocent people brutalised on the roadways, people’s cars burned, dangerous substance thrown in minibuses? There comes a time when this savagery has to stop and those political minds that encourage this savagery are unfit for modern society. DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.