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Jun 16, 2008 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon
The missing link in Guyana is the anti-dictatorship alliance. Any theorizing on politics in Guyana will conclude that this country is in the throes of a dictatorship. There are people like Ravi Dev who would like to tell us that dictatorship is only when you behave like Stalin in the USSR, or Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany.
One should not be distracted by such irritating inconsequentialities. Any use of modern political theory would reveal that the Government of Guyana practises widespread violations of democracy. The perversities, venalities, corruptibilities and brutalities are shocking enough to galvanize both political and civil societies of this nation to form a broad anti-dictatorship alliance.
It is doubtful that the business community will join the process. They have been successfully intimidated by the political elites. Look what President Jagdeo did to that Guyanese icon Yesu Persaud at the launching of the Guyana Times newspaper. I need to go on record and say that Mr. Jagdeo will never, and I repeat – never — come within a million miles of the achievements of Yesu Persaud. Mr. Persaud has taken his place alongside Critchlow and Walter Rodney as a Guyanese hero.
What is needed is for some respected person or an initiative from one of the political parties to begin the formation of a poly-class, multi-racial alliance to confront the tentacles of elected dictatorship in Guyana. This must be a non-electoral confabulation with one essential task – to seek local, regional and international solidarity in combating democratic violations by the Guyana Government.
Civil society actors and opposition parties that have traditional hang-ups about which group they are unhappy with must understand that the goal is a wider one, and it encompasses the preservation of Guyana. These hang-ups must be abandoned for the principle of saving Guyana.
All opposition parties, parliamentary and non-parliamentary, should be involved, with participation from the Guyana Council of Churches and the Catholic Church as a separate entity, the TUC, GHRA, Red Thread, ACDA, individual businessmen, journalists, and academics.
The first meeting should be held on neutral grounds; I would suggest at the head office of the GHRA or the Catholic Church. Another suggestion could be rented space at the Hotel Tower or Pegasus. The initial steering committee should consist of one representative from each organization, with the persons who are present in their individual capacities to select three persons of their choice.
The temporary chairman must be a personality not attached to any political party. I would recommend Father Malcolm Rodrigues.
This wide anti-dictatorship phenomenon should have two sub-committees. One is to lobby regional and international governments on the mess that is drowning Guyana. Particular attention should be paid to studying the activism of the previous anti-dictatorship rampart when Mr. Burnham was in power.
Personnel from the WPA, Catholic Church and the PPP travelled often to the region, and in Canada and the US lobbying for intervention. The new formation must adopt this route. A number of issues must be raised, with graphic facts to support the contentions. I would suggest four – (a) Oliver Hinckson’s press statement that caused him to be charged; (b) corruption cases; (c) naked abuse of power, including the violations of the Constitution; (d) the entire saga of Roger Khan in Guyana.
The second sub-committee should concentrate on persuading the US Embassy in Georgetown to follow-up on the details of the purchase of the high-tech laptop that Mr. Khan was caught with. This particular group of persons should ask the US Embassy to intervene with Spy Shops, the retail establishment in Florida that sold Mr. Khan the item.
The Spy Shops officials may not want to talk to private Guyanese citizens, but with a diplomatic question from the US Embassy here, we may get information as to if there are documents that suggest the computer was bought on Guyana Government stationary.
The new anti-authoritarian umbrella must, at all cost, avoid discussion of party politics and extraneous subjects for the sake of unity. The fundamental endeavour of this entity is to pressure the Guyana Government into respecting human right, the Constitution, the rule of law, the sacred convention of the separation of powers, putting an end to appalling corruption by state actors, and practising transparent government and good governance. One suspects that the runaway train of elected dictatorship has come about because there is no situational coalition to confront the Guyana Government.
Perceiving that the opposition is weak, civil society is lethargic, and the business community is under fear, this Government has given itself gargantuan latitude to do what it wants. The result is elected dictatorship. But more than this; not since the sixties has this country been so fragile.
Since the Lusignan mini-Holocaust and the Bartica massacre, this nation has become fearful about total social collapse. The Guyana Government has become hardened, insensitive and irrational. It is behaving like a typical dictatorship facing its final hour. The time has come for a broad coalition of patriots to save Guyana.
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