Guyana Observer News

Guyana, A land of Endangered Principles

Sunday, 22 March 2009

by Robin Williams
Guyana has become a land where things like fairness, truth, equality, etc have been rapidly disappearing from the administration of power over the past 17 years. Not that they were not constantly under assault in preceding periods. But one can honestly assert that if an objective examination was carried out on the two eras, the one that preceded the PPP coming into political power, and the one that accompanies the PPP coming into and exercising such power, the disintegration of those social values and principles on which the cohesiveness of human society is crucially dependant, has been frighteningly accelerated.

This avalanche in which values that enhance the human character are tumbling down from their hallowed positions at the top of our moral and ethical pinnacles, has been precipitated by a Napoleonic obsession with power in the leadership of the ruling political dynasty, and a savage disregard for the concerns and apprehensions of a particular segment of the Guyanese population.

The report by the Independent Expert on Minority Issues Gay McDougal, compiled from investigations conducted in Guyana between July 28 and August 1, 2008 summarizes the situation in Guyana as follows, quote: “ In July 2003, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance highlighted that he found that every level of Guyanese society is permeated by a profound moral, emotional and political fatigue, arising out of the individual and collective impact of ethnic polarization.1 In 2008, the independent expert witnessed a continuing societal malaise that shows evidence of having deepened and transformed in some instances into despair, anger and resistance. This is particularly evident among Afro-Guyanese individuals and communities that reported feeling excluded,
discriminated against and criminalized, end Quote. The report goes on to summarize the claims and concerns of Guyanese of African descent as it relates to their perceptions, experiences and opinion of the ruling political hierarchy in Guyana. What the expert found was that despite what was perceived as quote, “commendable steps on the part of the Government to date to address issues of ethnic tensions, criminal activities and economic underdevelopment”, end quote, Guyanese of African descent still felt, quote, “excluded from having a full voice and stake in the national polity and equal enjoyment of rights in many fields of life including employment and economic participation. They reported stigmatization of young Afro-Guyanese males and entire African communities. Derogatory stereotypes of criminality color wider societal perceptions of Afro-Guyanese individuals and communities”, end quote.
The State Party of Guyana, as can be expected, has issued indignant and verbose criticism of the expert’s report, protesting its focus on the largest minority in the nation among other things. I will leave the examination of that to others more interested in format than in content. The PPP ruling hierarchy encapsulates its rejection of the report with the response that, quote, “The State Party re-affirms that there is no institutionalized discrimination of any ethnic group or targeting of any one ethnic group or community in Guyana, end quote”. While one can agree that there might not be an official policy of discrimination and marginalization against Guyanese of African descent, the evidence that there is such a practice is overwhelming. There is only so much that can be attributable to accident and coincidence. When there are blatant double standards in the operations and conduct of state agencies and individuals, particularly in those areas that can have the greatest impact on the lives of individuals and groups, the onus is on the state to explain away those violations. The inability of the State party to offer up creditable explanations, its savagery in responding to complains and claims by the affected group, and its facetious dismissal of bona fide claims of state abuse and misconduct suggest that obduracy is the determining characteristic in its judgment formations. If the State Party did not target a specific group for discrimination the:

(a)   Why didn’t the President of Guyana take to the national airwaves and condemn extra-judicial killings during the period that the mutilated bodies of hundreds of young African men classified as criminal suspects were turning up all over the place, and being presented in living color on the front pages of newspapers before their families, including kids, were notified of their demise. Even if some of them were criminals, they had the right to due process and the presumption of innocence. Even if some of them were murderers, their wives and children were not, and thus should not have been subjected to this horrible manner of learning of the demise of a loved one. The torture and murder of those men by a criminal gang under the administration of Ronald Gajraj and Roger Khan elicited less concern from the State party than animals being struck down by vehicular traffic and left by the roadside. A State Party dedicated to the premise that all of its citizens were equal under the law regardless of their ethnicity would not have found itself arguing for due process and the presumption of innocence for an Indian who admitted involvement in extra-judicial killings, when they did not consider the same judicious in respect of his victims.

(b)   A State Party that offers up rewards for information in high profile murders where the victim is an Indian, but does not do the same when the victim is an African, cannot defend itself against claims and perceptions that it values the lives of citizens based on their ethnicity. The President of Guyana was fumingly reactive over the horrible killings of people like Minister Sash Sawh and other Indian Businessmen. Rewards were offered up to encourage information to get to the killers, and Law Enforcement was constantly extorted to find the perpetrators. The lack of reciprocity and concern when African Guyanese opposition Activist Ronald Waddell was brutally assassinated in front of his home was poignantly evident.

(c)   A State Party that is perceptually conscious of the point of view of the other side, and committed to ensuring that equality is not merely an expression of political enunciation, but manifest appearances in the eyes of all, would not tolerate the kind of imbalance in media ownership and control in Guyana. At present, although African Guyanese represent some 30% of the population there is not a single newspaper or radio station owned and controlled by African Guyanese. How can there be freedom in cultural expression when the State party shackles one community from enjoying this freedom while empowering another fullest capacity to do thus?

The claims and issues raised by the African Guyanese community with the UN expert on minority issues are products and consequences of the style, attitude and belligerence of the ruling State party. A State Party that exhibits rank hostility to unions that represent occupational sectors that employ a majority of African Guyanese. A State party that withdraws subventions from educational institutions like Critchelow Labor College that traditionally served large African Guyanese student populations. A State Party that responds sympathetically when Villages like Tain with Indian majorities protest Law Enforcement abuses by blocking roadways and burning tires in the streets, but describes similar behavior by residents of Buxton and other black communities as hooliganism. A State party that vehemently rationalizes collective punishment by Law Enforcement and the Military when the location is Buxton Guyana and the inhabitants are black, but takes the opposition when the location is Palestine and the inhabitants are Arab. A State Party that refused to live up to its obligation under the human rights charter of the United Nations by remaining silent while young black men were being tortured and gunned down criminal vigilante groups, by rationalizing and brutal and hideous torture of young black men who were in custody of Law Enforcement and the military, and by trivializing occurrences of such with claims that the citizenry are more concerned with material amenities than they are with these horrible exhibitions of torture and brutality.

The State Party of Guyana would not allow the abuses that make up the claims of African Guyanese to go unpunished if they were being made by any other minority group in Guyana, or by the majority group in Guyana. The atmosphere in Guyana under the current regime is one that is hostile to any complaint emanating from the African Guyanese community. No one in the State Party of Guyana have ever condemned or criticized discriminatory acts by members of the majority that targeted African Guyanese as individuals or as a group. Unless we are of the view that African Guyanese are the only group with faults in Guyana, these kinds of omissions sends clear signals of preference to both the community in favor, and the one that is not. If anything, the report of the United nations expert was not as severe as it could have been. Crimes that consequent arrest warrants being issued for the leaders of nations under whose watch they were committed, have occurred in Guyana. Were the victims anything other than black, arrest warrants would have been issued. Guyana has become a land where young black males are an endangered species, and the rules and principles that are supposed to guarantee their rights and freedoms are also on the chopping block.

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