Dear Editor,
As we commenced a new year under the PPP administration, and in particular, the Jagdeo administration, it is expected those of us who seek to analyse, critique and highlight its usual transgressions and violations will continue to be told that Mr Jagdeo and the PPP were democratically elected. As such we have no right to speak. In fact the government and its cohorts will tell us that the PNC was never democratically elected and they and others have no moral authority to speak because the PPP was elected through the process of free elections.
The issue of free elections has ever since been described as democracy.
Democracy is seen as the power of the people at work for the benefit of the entire society. Democracy can bring about a government elected with the participation of all the country’s citizens. However, democracy can see the election of a government that only pursues the interest of its group; puts measures in place to curtail or remove the rights of minorities; legislates to silence critics; suppresses media, dissent and independence; and distributes state assets unfairly.
Being democratically elected does not give any government the right to transgress the law, trample on the rights of citizens, and make unjust laws.
Those who argue for the upholding of the law, justice and respect for human rights are accused of being undemocratic. The time has come for those who label critics undemocratic to revisit that argument.
We should be wary of supposed democratic governments and we should only support and respect a democracy that is built and sustained on justice and fair play. We have a duty as citizens to watch for any anti-democratic telltale signs and speak out when we see them emerging. Our failure to do so can have dire consequences for all of us.
Over the years the Jagdeo government has run roughshod over the citizens, particularly, the African community. These transgressions are overlooked or justified under the pretext of democracy. For instance, this government has destroyed the bauxite industry pension fund, the largest single pool of money owned by the African working class; terminated the state subvention to Critchlow Labour College which provided education to a student population comprising 97 per cent Africans; terminated the Trades Union Congress’ subvention after GAWU and NAACIE left the congress; tolerated the torture of citizens; refused to investigate killings by the police and death squad of many young men; and allowed thousands of jobs to be lost without any attempt made at alternative employment or retraining to meet the new skills needed.
The time has come for those who think persons should not demand a better society to clearly understand that the democratic government of President Jagdeo is driven by policies that have been ethnically biased, undesirable and destructive to groups and society.
Yours faithfully,
Lincoln Lewis