Dear Editor,
Guyanese everywhere, I am sure, welcomed with a sigh of relief the meetings with stakeholders over the past two days that were convened by President Jagdeo, something that the general public and opposition parties have been calling for. Significant also was the crime communique signed by the Guyana Government and four political parties, which in addition to condemning the massacres in Lusignan and Buxton, recognised the need for international assistance, again something that Guyanese have been urging over the past couple of weeks.
We are told that Robert Corbin, leader of the People’s National Congress, decided against signing the communique, choosing instead to issue an independent press statement and letter to the President, in which the PNC reiterated that a genuine national stakeholder dialogue was yet to happen, and that its problem was not so much with the content of the statement as the process, that is that it was presented with a fait accompli document and asked to sign.
These problems notwithstanding, Robert Corbin’s position is most unfortunate, and more than a little puzzling. There is, indeed, much in the PNC press release that makes absolute sense, and with which one agrees. But that is not the point. This is not the time to be trying to score political mileage vis-a-vis the Government, and is one of the reasons why Guyanese are so sick and tired of the blatant opportunism and narrow vision that our politics has been so sadly reduced to. The country is facing a tragedy of national proportions.
Guyanese are in fear, across race and party lines, and in the face of something which seems to make no sense but which we know will not end unless we find a way to come together to tackle it collectively. This is no time for grandstanding. The President, finally recognising this, agreed to call a meeting with the parliamentary opposition and with civil society groups. I am told yesterday’s meeting was hours long, because he insisted that everyone be heard. The Government – through Roger Luncheon – had earlier said there was no need for international assistance. That position has now been overtaken by the joint communique issued, and by the offer of help from the Government of Trinidad and Tobago (a country itself besieged by a wave of violence, underscoring the need for less bilateral assistance and more of a regional or international organisational response to the crisis in Guyana). The Guyana government said they would not engage the PNC until it declared that Buxton is a safe haven for criminals – a ridiculous proposition which immediately had the effect of securing in the public imagination the assumption that anyone who hailed from Buxton was suspect, that legitimised state-sanctioned violence in the village and that made the community even more vulnerable. Yet the President agreed to meet the opposition, including and especially the PNC, without requiring the latter to demonise Buxton. On at least three major points, the Government has shifted its position. Why then the intransigence of the PNC?
In the final analysis, it is most narrow and short-sighted politics that led the PNC not to sign the communique. For if the two days of consultation have shown anything, it is the possibility that we can come together to dialogue across our divides. It is the first time, and it will not be easy. There will be bumps in the road. There will be disagreements over process, over substantive issues. But it is a start. It is a reason for us to hope. Most importantly, if it leads anywhere, it will set a critical precedent that this Government – and future administrations – simply cannot ignore, and that is that high- handed approaches are not only undemocratic, but that in the case of Guyana over the past couple of weeks, they have ended up alienating even many of the Government’s own supporters. It also offers civil society and the parliamentary opposition a space they can work assiduously to widen, to ensure shared input and participation in the process of running this country. This is what the PNC is in danger of missing, by putting its narrow agenda over the broader and long-term goal of changing the structure and nature of politics in Guyana.
Yours faithfully,
Alissa Trotz
