Guyana Observer News

The English cricketers read the local newspapers

Sunday, 22 March 2009

President Jagdeo left the country before the cricket got going. But it must have been an unnerving moment for him and the ruling party, especially Janet Jagan, after the release of a report to the UN Human Rights Commission on the state of civil rights in Guyana commissioned by the UN itself and carried in this newspaper three days after the English cricketers arrived in Guyana. Who says visiting sporting personalities do not read the newspapers of the countries that they are competing in? If you do not know this it means you have never watched a sporting event on television, especially cricket. Test cricket is the world’s longest sporting event; a game takes up to five days assuming that the two competing teams are not bowled out in that time span. Everyday, for those five days, those who are not on the field, sit in the pavilion where they would pass the time reading newspapers and magazines. At the hotel, they get the newspapers too.
David Gower, one of the English commentators, remarked that he read in the newspapers that a street in Georgetown has been named after Chanderpaul. Are we to believe that he didn’t glance at life in Guyana in the other pages?

The report paints a gloomy picture of this country which long before Independence in 1966 has been plagued with violent instabilities stretching back to the beginning of the second half of the 20th century. One hopes all the visitors from abroad, including both cricket teams and the commentators, have read on Thursday what was written about Guyana’s precarious future in that study.

I would wish that they would take some time off during the intervals of today’s game to reflect on this country if they have perused Ms. Gay Mc Dougall’s finding. When I read the report, my mind went straight to the two remaining survivors of the original PPP in the fifties - Janet Jagan and Ashton Chase.
What went through their psyches as they saw the canvas of this country painted with colours of pessimism? The analyst, Gay Mc Dougall, finds Guyana a country punctuated with social and economic stagnation whose derivative is deep, racial polarization. It was so timely that this compilation was released about the same time Mrs. Jagan wrote her weekly column about the friendship between her husband Cheddi Jagan and the great Black American civil rights activist, Paul Robeson.

What has become of the great anti-racist party that Mrs. Jagan, Cheddi Jagan and Ashton Chase founded in the fifties? What has happened to the influence of great people like Robeson on Mrs. Jagan?
If the cricketers read this column they would be surprised to know that this same Mrs. Jagan who featured the great anti-racist Paul Robeson in her commentaries is perhaps the most influential personality in the leadership of the party that administers the affairs of this nation.

How then do you account for this party being in power for just over sixteen years yet look at the low scores the UN consultant has given this country on the issue of racial harmony and good governance.
Let’s quote from the findings of Ms. Mc Dougall as carried in this newspaper; “McDougall said that ethnically divided political and administrative structures and failed political processes have created deep frustrations and distrust in the institution of government. ”

One wonders if the British, American and Canadian Governments, the World Bank and the IDB will continue to aid this country against the background of these findings. They say that if you use aid as a political weapon, it is the poor that will suffer. But surely, there has to come a time, when aid donors have to step in and demand in rigorous terms the implementation of good governance in Guyana.
What is going through the mind of people like Gerry Gouveia whom I saw on television thanking President Jagdeo for being the leader of Guyana after he would have read what Ms Mc Dougall has sent to the UN Human Rights Commission about the state of affairs in this country?
I once had some respect for Mr. Gouveia. But you know what they say about businessmen? Profits come before progress.

So what will Mrs. Jagan, President Jagdeo and the rest of the PPP pyramid say about Mc Dougall’s conclusions? For those visitors in Guyana who may just have a superficial knowledge about the authoritarian nature of the government in this land, here is the basic response from the rulers - Ms Mc Dougall is not a good researcher. What President Jagdeo told her didn’t soak in because she was brainwashed by the opposition and critics of the PPP.
Apparently what Mrs. Jagan told her too didn’t soak in either. The tragedy of Guyana goes on!

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