Guyana Observer News

Boycott Parliament!

Wednesday, 29 July 2009

Where was Mr. Corbin when Dr. Jagan was the Opposition Leader? Mr. Corbin was right here in Guyana sitting in the Parliament and observing the periodic boycott of Parliament by the PPP. The PNC did the proper thing and began a boycott a few years ago. Then Jimmy Carter came and brokered a deal. In that agreement, the PPP would be more inclusive and in return the PNC would end its abstention campaign. Mr. Corbin got conned, not by Carter, but by the PPP. It went back to Parliament. The PPP didn’t offer anything in return. For his part, Carter called it a day in Guyana. He felt that the PPP betrayed his trust and was not interested in building democracy. He is not coming back.
Mr. Carter’s international clout may have been given a huge boost with the election of Barack Obama. Mr. Carter was one of the earliest “white” influential voices that endorsed Mr. Obama over Mrs. Clinton. There is every possibility that Mr. Carter may have the ear of President Obama on countries whose leaders are in contravention of international laws.
The combined opposition, leaving out Mr. Ravi Dev’s ROAR (who would not be interested anyway), and people like Mark Benschop and Rickford Burke and the Guyana Human Rights Association, ought to secure the intervention of Mr. Carter once more.
The question of officially sanctioned torture of Guyana ought to be discussed with Mr. Carter. There is every reason to believe that Mr. Carter will give the Government of Guyana a large failure grade for democratic performance.
Let us return to the subject of boycott. If the PNC had refused to take up their seats in Parliament five years ago when the authoritarian moods of elected dictatorship was in their gesticulation stage, one could defend the argument that the PNC has no alternative but to reconstitute their boycott campaign given what is taking place with state power today.
No dispassionate analyst, no honest-minded person, and no Guyanese who lived through the Burnham era could be myopic, naïve or dishonest to deny that we are back on the road to dictatorship and this time the reign of state terror makes Forbes Burnham look like a schoolboy trying to find his way out of a forest.
The scandals, violations and perversities of the Government of Guyana have gone past the excesses of the PNC Government when Mr. Burnham was President.
The real bad time in Guyana since Independence is not what we had under Burnham but what the Guyanese people have to endure today.
No one can tell me that state terror under Burnham was greater. Mr. Burnham had one thing that put him above Mr. Jagdeo – he was more sophisticated in how he went about getting his own way.
He was astute enough to know when to take one step backward so that he could take two steps forward.
That was a famous saying by the founder of communist Russia, Vladimir Lenin. You would have thought that Mr. Jagdeo who was educated in the USSR before communism disappeared from that country and the rest of the PPP leadership, would know more about communist strategies than anyone in the PNC, including Mr. Burnham. But they don’t. PPP leaders take one step backward so they could take two steps forward but they end up going backwards even further.
The time has come in Guyana for the PNC. AFC and GAP to wash their hands clean of a farcical Parliament and a Government that has become semi-fascist. Guyanese read in the newspapers that the PNC has asked for the postponement of the low carbon debate in the House for a few days. What are the PNC and AFC doing debating low carbon development with the PPP in Parliament?
The future of Guyana hinges on inclusive governance not on low carbon. Inclusive governance takes in the observance of the rule of law and the sacredness of the Constitution. Inclusive governance denotes the abolition of racism in the exercise of state power. No such decencies are present the governorship of the ruling party.
We don’t have even a modicum of decency in the use of state power much less the higher requirements of democracy. So why debate low carbon in the National Assembly rather than low governance.
Are the PNC and AFC going to play Mr. Jagdeo’s game and get serious about Mr. Jagdeo’s low carbon agenda? Are the PNC and the AFC actually going to massage the PPP’s ego? Low carbon is going to remain a low sounding refrain that will soon become less than a low footnote in the unattainable legacy of Mr. Jagdeo.
The AFC and PNC should do better things with their time.

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