Speaker of the National Assembly Ralph Ramkarran made a stirring speech in Orlando, Florida last Saturday when he called for a high degree of national unity in order to bring criminals to justice and pointed out that poverty is the main root cause of crime.
Speaking at a celebration to mark the 38th anniversary of the Co-operative Republic, Ramkarran said “I believe that national unity is indispensable to the resolution of our political and social problems including the plague of criminality which we now face”
He also touched on the race for the White House in the United States when he said that “you in the U.S are witnessing a phenomenon that few, if anyone here expected to see in his or her lifetime, that is, an African American receiving broad support and poised to win the nomination and perhaps the Presidency. Whoever you support, if this happens it would herald a revolutionary transformation in America and world politics” He added that whatever happens, American politics will never the same.
The Speaker said in Guyana we must not see a political culture impervious to the transformational power of changing social and political ideas and conditions. “In all of this” he said, “we must not forget that it is the continuing existence of poverty which drives feelings of marginalization and insecurity. At the end of the day, it is poverty which is one of the main root causes of crime. ”
Therefore, Ramkarran said, we must never remove our focus from the ultimate objective of eliminating poverty from Guyana.
Guyanese living overseas, he said, have done exceptionally well in their adopted countries. As a result of this upward mobility he said that we are seeing an increasing focus on transferring resources to Guyana. The Caribbean diaspora is now so valuable that wealthy Barbados is looking to organize its diaspora for developmental purposes. We in Guyana, the Speaker added, not only welcome the enormous assistance being provided to Guyana in numerous ways, but also the increasingly vocal interest that the diaspora display in Guyana’s affairs. He added : “it is my view that you are entitled to ask questions and we are prepared to learn from each other in reasoned debate”.
