– Alexander feels all parties need to atone
Admitting that the PNC has made mistakes and some members may have done wrong in the past, prospective leadership candidate Dr Richard Van West Charles says the party has to take the blame, apologise as a principle and move forward.
“I am not ashamed of the PNC,” he told Stabroek News, “this does not mean that the PNC has not made mistakes. Every institution makes mistakes. Members of the PNC have done things that are wrong to people and because they are members of the PNC, the PNC has to take that blame. It is not the PNC, as an organisation, that goes out and says I am going to do evil.”
But Van West Charles, who served as health minister in the PNC administration, adds that before arriving at blame, an evidenced-based approach would have to be taken to address those questions about the party’s time in government. Additionally, he believes that some consideration needs to be given to the political context in which it operated, including the pressures brought to bear by the cold war and domestic attempts to sabotage the economy.
Political analysts have often argued that in order to move forward, the party needs to confront its past, thereby freeing itself of the political baggage of its association with a dictatorial governance that saw electoral fraud, rights abuses and victimisation. It is also an argument that members of the party have wrestled with when considering the question of widening its support base, with some favouring and others opposed. It is certainly is a question that had been asked about both former party leader Desmond Hoyte and current leader Robert Corbin.
Baggage
To be sure, the candidacy of Van West Charles as well as the potential candidacy of Dr Aubrey Armstrong brings the legacy of the party’s 28 years into sharp focus. In addition to his ministerial post, Van West Charles was the son-in-law of the late party founder and president Forbes Burnham, who has been labelled a dictator. Armstrong, meanwhile, was at one time a member of a pressure group, Compass, that was among the resistance to the Burnham regime.
Stabroek News attempted to contact Armstrong for comment about his involvement with Compass and his view on the question of the PNC administration, but was unsuccessful. However, in a recent interview he said his association with the group demonstrates that he thinks independently, which he expected that not everyone would like it in and out of the party. He also said it was well known that he left the country because the then prime minister gave him an instruction that he thought was wrong.
Van West Charles, however, does not view the party’s mistakes or lingering questions about its legacy as political baggage. He says the PNC has made a significant contribution to the development of the country in every sector, citing in particular education, health, infrastructure development and international relations as areas where there was success. “One can go on and on in terms of the PNC’s performance in government and therefore I am not afraid to be associated with that period,” he says, while noting that today the country is wrestling with crime, including a high level of fear and the easy access to guns, discrimination as well as multi-faceted corruption. “Let them compare this period to the [PNC’s],” he declares.
At the same time, he admits that the PNC made mistakes while in government. In general terms, he says the party was trying to do a lot in a short space of time in every sector, without the requisite technical acumen in place. “We had some managerial issues, in terms of the implementation, in moving down the road,” he says.
Evidence-based
Asked whether persons in the PNC administration did wrong, Van West Charles says he cannot identify any person specifically. “We may have had members who did wrong things, therefore, the organisation has to apologise for those wrongs as a principle,” he explains, “I can’t say who, with what specifics [but] if the cases are brought before me and one can see that persons have done wrong, I have no difficulty in saying ‘yes’.”
But he emphasises that such a process cannot be based on hearsay or rumour, saying it would not move the situation forward. He did not rule out incidents of victimisation, but was firm that it was not a policy of the party. “But, that does not mean that the party must be absolved from it, because if a member commits wrong, the party has to take that blame and deal with it,” he points out, adding “once there is evidence, one way or the other, we have to say–if it is perceived we did wrong–we apologise and move forward. It does not mean other operatives have not done wrong in the political realm of the country.”
Accusations could be made back and forth, according to him.
Cold war
He cautions that context also has to be considered when making a judgement of the Burnham era. He talks about the political context in which Burnham operated, saying because of the ideological position of the cold war powers there was “significant pressure” exerted on the government. “Let’s take the flour issue–operatives were sent into the country hoping we would have bread riots,” he says, explaining that government’s attempt to import flour under the PL-480 plan was hindered by delay tactics. “We tried to get a line of credit to have the flour come and we eventually got a line of credit via the Bank of Baroda. When we got the line of credit… they refused to accept it… By that time, we had to get the line of credit via Barclays Bank. When we acquired the line of credit, they said the boat had sailed to somewhere else and we couldn’t get the flour,” Van West Charles recalls. Similarly, in the case of the MMA, the government had acquired a soft loan but in mid stream was asked to meet harsher conditions, he adds. “So those are the political determinants of the cold war at the time, based on ideology, seeking to ensure pressures were brought on the government. When you look at the terrorist action, in terms of the destruction of the cane fields, the strikes, in an attempt to destroy the economy of the country and what you have got to do to respond, those are the issues you have to put into the discussions before you arrive at blame,” he concludes.
In 2004, Corbin floated the idea of setting up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in a bid to give closure to those who are still aggrieved about the country’s past. Van West Charles says it would be dependent on how it is structured. It needs to be clear that it will bear fruit in the way of moving the country forward and explained that what is needed is a framework that addressed immediate issues such as governance and race and ethnic discrimination, he says, in a dialogue that takes place from the bottom up. He adds, “We are a young nation and we have to begin to set those parameters in place to ensure that the nation is going to move and develop in a strong way and not based on the pathological perception that people have about each other.”
Sharing blame
“All parties–the PNCR and the PPP in particular–have to bear some responsibility for what happened to Guyana,” says former party vice-chairman Vincent Alexander, “And therefore, I still don’t see the [PNC] being involved in any exercise of atonement, as if they are the sole and gravest wrongdoers.” He says the question of blame is one that is relevant, but not in a reductive way, limiting it to one party. “The relevant question is one of plurality–a question of all the players,” he points out, while noting that with the debate about “the Janet Jagan era” and her participation, people should be more conscious of the fact that it is not a question of pointing a finger at any one player.
According to him, if the party engages in any exercise on its own, it would have to be what he calls a “contextualisation” of the Burnham period, rather than an act of contrition. He admits that such a process could lead to the conclusion that there was wrongdoing, but also aid the understanding of the context in which it occurred, thereby allowing a fair judgement of the late former president and his administration. In this vein, the Burnham Foundation, which Alexander chairs, is embarking on a project that will be launched later in the year aimed at providing a fuller understanding of the Burnham era. It would be based on historical information, he explained, examining the era from its genesis.
Asked whether there was wrongdoing by the PNC administration, he says there may have been but adds that the issue is whether it was malicious. “You may have wrongdoing that was conceptualised almost differently,” he argues, “You may also have wrongdoing that, if contextualised, may in retrospect be understood, if not accepted, and in the Guyana context there is some of that as well.”
But Alexander does not agree with the view that confronting its past would be beneficial to the party in the way of broadening its support base.”I don’t know that even if the PNC did wrong or they were to admit that they did wrong, that there is any automaticity that there is going to be a different approach to the PNC,” he says, adding that it would be used by the party’s rivals as a reason not to support it. “There is no prudence in the context of the inter-party rivalry that we have in Guyana for one party to go out there, in some act of admission, with the hope that it going to convert people,” he adds.
Naivety
The idea of the need for the party to shed its baggage is a trend that Alexander attributes to naivety and opportunism. He explains that the sentiment is often expressed by people who do not understand the political culture, as well as others who he believes are trying to use the party to gain credibility “by saying ‘I wasn’t involved’ and by saying that ‘the PNC should apologise.’”
Alexander does believe there is need for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission involving the participation of all stakeholders, to settle any outstanding questions. “We’ve all got to bear our souls and in that process somebody might be [guiltier] than the other–if that is the case–but it is not the case where there are the innocent and the guilty,” he says.
Further, although he acknowledges that a party looking for plurality would have to go beyond its traditional supporters, Alexander remains unconvinced that apologising is a prerequisite in this regard. He explains that there is a need for everyone to take responsibility for moving the country forward, rather than laying its problems at the feet of one set of people while proclaiming that things will be alright. “Things are not going to be alright…,” he emphasises, “the genesis of the problems is the plural nature of the society and the recognition of it and the need for there to be some kind of mechanism to give justice to all in a state of plurality; that is what we are not addressing.”
He adds that while people appear to have moved away from those issues as if they have disappeared, they have not. Alexander says there has been a failure to “address those fundamental issues” over the years, making them more endemic as they have been exploited for political gains and ignored.
Reversal
According to Alexander, young people in particular have very limited exposure to Burnham beyond the criticism of him and his policies. As a result, he says they have not been given the opportunity to analyse all of the facts related to him and gain a complete picture. People are sold a negative image, according to him, and are feeding off what he calls “a state of ignorance rather than enlightenment.
But he adds that there has been some reversal of the attitude to Burnham. The group that he thinks was most effective opposition to the Burnham regime was not the PPP but the Working People’s Alliance, whose support cut across the racial divide. “You will find a number of WPA people who will not say what he did was acceptable, but in retrospect they now understand there was a beast he was dealing with that he understood. They are now dealing with the beast, allowing them to understand why he did what he did, even if misguided,” he says.
