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Sep 07, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom
The Charge D’Affaires of the United States Embassy can solve with one stroke the problem that the Mormons are encountering with the immigration authorities in Guyana. All she has to do is to use visa diplomacy.
Nothing works faster to get the local authorities acting than the threat of pulling the visas of government officials and that of their relatives.
We have an administration in Guyana that just loves to go to New York and the very idea that they will never again enjoy the privilege of walking down Liberty Avenue, Queens and Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, is enough to end all this rigmarole over the Mormons in Guyana.
The Americans will use diplomatic means to resolve the present impasse, but they will not use visa diplomacy because the United States government operates on the basis of established protocols, and simply to invoke visa sanctions against government officials and their families as a means of pressuring the administration to withdraw the order for the Mormons to leave, will never be condoned by the US State Department.
While visa diplomacy may not be on the cards at the moment, the administration ought however to be aware that it can be invoked to prevent the proceeds of official corruption reaching the United States. So all of those who have moved from simply putting their hands in the cookie jar to placing their entire body into the jar had better beware.
The government of Guyana needs to level with the people of Guyana. Surely, no one takes seriously the explanation that the Mormons are being expelled because many of them have overstayed their time or have not had their work permits extended.
Why is the Ministry of Home Affairs making a problem over these people of God when the ban instituted by the very Ministry of Finance against an artiste whose lyrics have been deemed offensive to public taste and morals, is being lifted? How does the Ministry of Home Affairs reconcile the fact that it will be allowing a controversial artiste whose songs are about guns and violence to come to Guyana as part of a show promoted by someone close to the government, yet people who preach peace and help the poor are being asked to leave simply because they do not have extensions to their work permits?
There are thousands of Brazilians presently in Guyana. Do all of those Brazilians have valid work permits? We have had persons arrested in this country for crimes committed overseas. And these persons not only were working in Guyana; they had businesses established. We had a man who lived on the East Bank, who was deported in the dark of night to Europe. I wonder how he got his work permit to establish residence and business in Guyana.
There can be no justification for the defense that the Guyana government is offering for expelling the Mormons.
The Ministry of Home Affairs itself has come under the microscope for the manner in which it had dealt with immigration matters. A Cuban doctor married to a Guyanese was denied citizenship and forced to move to the Courts to prevent his deportation to Cuba.
So where was the concern for the observance of the letter of the law then? Another doctor has had to move to the Courts to force the Ministry to issue him with a work permit.
This sudden resort to the excuse that the immigration laws must be complied with therefore rings hollow. But even more disappointing is that this controversy is occurring at a time when the very Guyanese government is objecting to the manner in which Guyanese are being rounded up in certain countries of the Caribbean and deported.
Our President has complained repeatedly about this matter and has called on the immigration authorities in those countries to treat other nationals of the Caribbean with dignity.
But how does his administration treat the Mormons? The authorities, no different from how our nationals have been treated in other countries rounded up the Mormons, and had them impounded at Eve Leary.
Then came the intervention by the most powerful country in the world and there was a quick back step, but no retreating on the expulsion orders for those whose papers were not right. Those who do not have valid world permits will now be given thirty days to leave.
Why not thirty days to get their papers right?
No consideration seems to be given to the fact that some of these have valid appeals being processed and would have been entitled to due process before being expelled from a country which needs skills and people.
The real reason for the expulsion now seems to be emerging. It seems as if the Mormons had developed a relationship with the PNCR which has admitted to facilitating the work of the Church in certain areas.
In this regard, the Mormons have made a huge mistake. They ought to have stayed clear of any such social partnership since this was bound to bring them into conflict with the administration. The Mormons should have stayed clear of any involvement with political parties even if it was for humanitarian work.
While there has been a vehement denial by the Ministry of Home Affairs that the Mormons were being expelled for spying, the Mormons should appreciate the suspicions in these parts over the activities of US-based sects.
These sects were used by the US administration in the eighties to undermine leftist influences in Latin America and thus there remains reservations about the activities of US based sects.
If any of the activities of the Morons in Guyana is linked to the US government – and so far there has been no link- and if those activities were of a political nature, then it would expose the US government of indirect interference in the internal affairs of a sovereign State, something that would merit not just the expulsion of the Mormons but possibly of US diplomatic personnel.
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