The Alliance For Change (AFC) is not prepared to embrace the political declaration of the PPP on party relations until it sees a change in the attitude of the party in which there is less talk and more action on dealing with security issues.
Condemning the PPP Central Committee Report to the 29th Congress of the PPP over the weekend in which it was stated that parliamentary opposition parties were using crime to further their political agenda, AFC Leader Raphael Trotman said the statements were made conveniently to consolidate the PPP support base.
The Central Committee Report presented by General Secretary Donald Ramotar said that criminal enterprises were linked to politics.
On the security issue, Trotman said that the parliamentary opposition, including the AFC, has worked successfully with the government in and out of parliament when there was a security crisis affecting the nation, more recently in the national stakeholders’ meeting on security.
Noting the declaration that came at the end of the Congress and which spoke of the PPP being ready to engage with any opposition group to discuss areas of disagreement to arrive at unified positions for the benefit of the people, he said the AFC would wait to see whether the PPP was serious since the statements made in the Central Committee Report and adopted by the congress seemingly contradict the political declaration.
The PPP/Civic, as an alliance, he said has to accept that in the present day context, they cannot manage the affairs of the state on their own and because of this the AFC was interested in working with them.
Their engagement, he said, must be in a meaningful way to create a new political system and approach to governance and not when they feel like reaching out in a crisis like they did during the stakeholders’ meeting and when that crisis dissipates they revert back to an exclusionary approach.
He said the Central Committee Report of the PPP on inter-party relations was generally irresponsible, reckless, opportunistic and inherently racist in the sense that it was “obviously intended to foment racial divisiveness and to cause further fear and tension.”
Noting that the Central Committee Report was of the view that the AFC’s position approximated to that of the PNCR in relation to criminals operating in Buxton and that it was not surprising since Trotman was one of the first PNCR leaders who visited Buxton during the period when the five escapees from the Georgetown Prisons were hiding there, Trotman said he would be writing the PPP General Secretary on the matter condemning that section of the report.
He said that his visits to Buxton and villages and communities throughout the country during and after his tenure with the PNCR were always with a view to obtaining information and providing support to residents in the same way that members of the PPP including Ramotar visit constituencies and other communities.
Trotman said that the AFC led the way in the aftermath of the Lusignan, Bartica and Lindo Creek massacres calling for a stakeholders meeting and for a review of the national security strategy. The AFC’s views and opinions, he said, were relied on heavily at the stakeholders’ engagement on security which was summoned by President Bharrat Jagdeo at the Office of the President.
The AFC’s proposals for the convening of the Security Sector Committee and the establishment of the rights commissions were praised and accepted by President Jagdeo and the government, he said adding that “Our views and positions on crime and national security are well known and are firm, consistent and always in the national interest.”
In addition, Trotman said that Ramotar’s statement about the PPP having parliamentary representation in all 10 administrative regions was “downright false, knowing that the PPP usurped the Region 10 (Upper Demerara/Upper Berbice) seat, which was won by the AFC.”
Having usurped the seat, which is now being occupied by Prime Minister Sam Hinds, he said the PPP/C government “now fails to provide any relief to the people in the region but rather provide no representation and instead punish, deny and denigrate the residents there.”
He said that Ramotar’s statements about building consensus and alliances are a farce when read in conjunction with his other statements including the one which says that the AFC’s approach to appealing to all racial groups will fail.
“This in itself shows that he is stuck in the dark past from which Guyanese want to be liberated and his continuous presence in the hierarchy of the PPP will stymie progress for Guyana. We want new and refreshing approaches to nation building and national unity not divisiveness and nastiness,” he said. (Miranda La Rose)
