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Jul 24, 2012 Letters
Dear Editor,
The PPP could dance all around the facts and reality it wants but, as GHK Lall aptly reminded us, when a political party that depends on racial voting and that operates in a racial-political cauldron is handed for the first time a reality check on its accustomed majority power by loss of some of its traditional constituency, one has to carefully analyze its actions or omissions and the ensuing repercussions (see Lall’s “Responsibility, maturity and patience are needed, SN, July 20, 2012). This analysis is even more pressing when the party is no longer democratic and inclusive but exclusionary and cabalistic. As Lall rightly pointed out, there were several incidents in this country coming from both sides of the ethnic fence since the November 28, 2011 election that have dramatized ethnic tensions in Guyana.
Whether it is post-election protests or the shooting of unarmed protesters or absurd accusations of electoral rigging by the party controlling the electoral machinery or the blaming of Indians for the manner in which they voted or the antics of both parties in Parliament or the bitter challenges to everything or the racist Chronicle editorial and the PPP’s silence to it and attempts to factually uphold it and the unnecessary use of force in Linden resulting in deaths, there is strong suggestion of a pattern in this country that leaves us wondering whether some are hell-bent on returning this country to frightening racial tensions for the sake of power.
Yes, racial voting is still intact but the fear factor and ethnic insecurity are slowly diminishing and some may not be prepared to tolerate this reality. Some may want a return to the utter paralysis of racialized fear. Some forget the political vindictiveness that accompanied the PPP’s increase of the electricity tariffs in Linden following the trouncing the party took there in the last election. While Lindeners should pay what the rest of Guyana pays, the PPP’s callously failed to create an arrangement for a gradual increase of tariffs rather than an abrupt imposition on a destitute community.
The PPP knew Lindeners were going to protest after the PPP raised tariffs on July 1, 2012. Lindeners had protested before since the budget. The PPP knew large scale protests were being planned. The racist Chronicle editorial referenced Linden several times and mentioned opposition protests in derogatory terms. This strongly convinces me that the actors behind the Chronicle editorial knew of the provocative potential of Linden. To proceed and publish a racist editorial only served to inflame the racial animus in Guyana exactly at a time when the PPP knew massive protests by an African community of tens of thousands were coming.
Knowing this fact and still publishing a racist editorial that vilifies Africans will fulfill one purpose and one purpose only; anger and enrage tens of thousands of Africans protesting in Linden and hundreds of thousands of Africans throughout Guyana if anything goes wrong in those protests such as senseless killings. Even if this was some errant journalist with a racial bone to pick, the silence of the PPP’s leadership on the editorial must mean endorsement.
The same goes for that other political snake in Guyana, the PNC/APNU. It failed to attack the editorial, disgracing its claim to the defender of Africans who butter its political bread every election. If the PNC/APNU condemned the racist editorial the very same day it was published, it would have forced the PPP to do likewise and this combined action would have lowered the seething ethnic anger in the streets. Further, APNU/PNC gave the PPP the courage to behave in this manner to Lindeners when it tried to collude with the PPP to impose the tariff increases before backpedalling. However, the PPP bears the brunt of the blame for this disaster in Linden.
The silence of the PPP to the racist editorial and the attempts of some low level PPP barkers to argue factuality on the editorial, strongly convey the PPP’s general acceptance of the tone of the editorial. The PPP fully knew the danger of the editorial for inflaming ethnic outrage in Guyana and definitely so on the eve of a then looming situation in Linden, yet it said or did nothing. In this case, silence amounts to consent and acceptance. If the PPP genuinely believed PNC/APNU supporters were going to ‘rampage’ in Linden in the wake of the editorial from the government’s mouthpiece that the government refused to condemn, the PPP was certainly aware or should have been aware of the potential of this situation for the aggrandizing of ethnic tensions.
Faced with this looming situation of ethnic furore, the PPP had only one legal, governmental, executive, civic, patriotic and constitutional option – to take vigilant and proactive steps to quell such potential for ethnic tensions at all costs. Those steps available to the PPP were an apology for the editorial, meetings with Lindeners and opposition members representing Lindeners, revisiting the tariffs to impose same in a gradual manner and ensuring comprehensive direct authority and management of the police forces to ensure they were of sufficient numbers to confront a massive protest, had adequate non-deadly weaponry and training, were commanded by trained commanders, had viable tactical strategies at every turn to de-escalate the situation and the PPP’s leadership was in direct control of the forces and the situation to blunt conflict enlargement. How is it that the post-election protesters in Georgetown did not face live rounds but the Lindeners were killed with live ammunition?
To use deadly force or to deliberately fail to prepare the forces for a colossal protest on the back of simmering ethnic acrimony when any rational person would prepare in a comprehensive manner is to invite amplification of ethnic tensions since the use of deadly force or the acts and omissions of untrained, ill-prepared and undermanned ranks will inevitably lead to fatal mistakes which lead to deadly force which lead to the intensification of ethnic rage in Guyana.
A government faced with the simmering tensions predating Linden and its risk to the fragile racial coexistence of this country does not have a choice. It must derail and overcome the possibility for ethnic tension at all costs.
The PPP failed to do so despite the fact that it possessed the power, authority, means, time to act and other routes to achieve that diminution of ethnic hostilities. This is not a matter of incompetence, for the PPP was highly competent in dealing with the Georgetown post-election protests.
It is not only acts but omissions, deliberate and otherwise, that can compound tensions in this country. Ironically, we are exactly in the same situation as the 1973 Berbice ballot box killings where the PNC to this day insists it used deadly force to battle an out-of-control mob and the PPP rejects that position. The shoe is now on the other foot with respect to the Linden killings where the PPP is now in the boots of the PNC and the PNC/APNU is in the shoes of the PPP of 1973. It is incredible how history often taunts political miscreants.
M. Maxwell
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