Even as President Bharrat Jagdeo prepares to press the case for better treatment of Guyanese residing in Barbados, the sentiment among politicians is that there should be improvements at home so as to encourage them to stay here.
These thoughts were expressed by representatives of the Alliance for Change (AFC) and Guyana Action Party/Rise Organise and Rebuild (GAP/ROAR).
Last week the PNCR slammed government’s “band aid approach” over the years to complaints from Guyanese travelling to Barbados and said inadequate representation on the island contributed to the current tenuous situation. The party also called for a long-term policy to deal with the matter, which the government has since accepted and has pledged to pursue.
An announcement last week by Barbadian Prime Minster David Thompson in which he presented his cabinet’s intention to clamp down on undocumented Caricom nationals had spurred widespread discussion.
Jagdeo has since promised to represent the cause of his people at a special meeting of Caricom heads taking place today in Trinidad and Tobago.
Meanwhile, speaking with this newspaper yesterday, AFC Parliamentarian Sheila Holder said the Barbados immigration scenario highlights the fact that the regional system is being undermined.
Holder said she felt the global economic crisis has been affecting governments, “causing people like Thompson to be insular.” She said Guyanese have always been hospitable to all visitors adding that in the time when many Barbadians came to Guyana, they too received good treatment.
Asked whether she felt that Jagdeo’s deliberations today might influence a change in the current situation, Holder told Stabroek News, “You cannot persuade a people to respect you, you have to command that respect by your conduct.”
And she insisted that the conduct of the Jagdeo administration over the years had not commanded respect and this has affected Guyanese residing in different parts of the region.
“I don’t think that this government has the moral authority to take any action since they are the ones that cause Guyanese to leave in the first place because of their inability to rule fairly, attract investments so that Guyanese can have a good life in their homeland,” she said.
But Holder was adamant that some good will come out of the entire scenario, for Guyana.
“In every crisis there is an opportunity. So if push comes to shove and all those people have to come home then they will demand the type of political stability and foresight required, and so those Guyanese with some money and technical resources will invest in their own country,” she said.
She believes that this experience could be a blessing in disguise for Guyana.
She said the same ingenuity and hard work — qualities which Guyanese have demonstrated when residing overseas — could be used right here to make the country better.
“It is time they demonstrate their talent in their own country, and the AFC stands willing to facilitate that process of change,” she added.
Holder predicts Guyana seeing growth and development in the near future and those very Caribbean countries who have ill-treated its peoples flocking to these shores.
“And we plan to be hospitable to our Caribbean brothers and sisters,” she added.
While he believes too that much more needs to be done at home to encourage Guyanese to stay, GAP/ROAR Member of Parliament Everall Franklyn told Stabroek News that the laws of any country must be respected.
“We have to respect whatever law any country institutes… just how we expect them to respect our laws,” he started out by saying.
However, Franklyn said there is still a need for a review of the Caricom Single Market and Economy and what it stands for as well as whether it is being pursued by all.
“I feel some are pushing for it while others really don’t care,” he said. On the other hand, Franklyn said, Guyanese will be continuously handed this type of treatment once the Guyana government cannot provide for its people.
“There is not much we can do right now but to make our situation at home better so that people would have less need to run away. They go away to try to raise their standard of living. This is indicative of the fact that our people are not being provided for adequately,” Franklyn said.
He said he believes that Guyana is doing its share to ensure that the CSME is kept alive.
If this were to be evaluated equally, then Guyana would have to look at those companies in Guyana with Barbadian interests, since Guyanese working in Barbados are providing economic help to the country in their own way, by helping their relatives.
“We will have to start doing something which we could have control over and let them put pressure on their government to stop this nonsense,” he said.
The Barbadian government has given undocumented immigrants until June 1 to submit themselves to immigration and meet certain requirements or be removed by year end.
Though undocumented immigrants seem to be the intended target group, reports out of Barbados have indicated that the government there may have put a freeze on the issuance of work permits to persons who had that status, making their stay illegal.
Commentators have toyed with the suggestion that the new policy is intended to lure illegal immigrants into believing that their status could be regularized, then reasons would be found to send them home anyhow.
