‘Life is a cabaret, old chum,’ runs the song, and nowhere is that more true than in GT. Never one to lose an opportunity to entertain the public, the Minister of Home Affairs on Wednesday mounted a special performance for the populace with a cast which included 50 missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormons (as they are popularly known) spent more than twelve hours at Eve Leary, doing their bit to uplift the spirits of the world-weary officers in CID with a spot of hymn-singing.
For citizens who picked up their papers on Thursday morning to peruse the headlines, the first thought must have been, ‘What scandal is this now?’ But as they got down into the body of the story they would have discovered that this was not about banditry or drugs or armed robbery or some other unimaginable crime; this was about a breach of the immigration regulations. This is not to suggest that the immigration rules must not be enforced; it is simply to observe that persons are deported (and perhaps asked to leave on a voluntary basis) fairly regularly, unaccompanied by any of this high drama which reached its climax with the intervention of the President himself.
It is true, of course, that the possible deportation of as many as fifty members of the fourth largest church in the US would have been newsworthy at some level; however, the matter was handled in such an astonishingly theatrical way, that the message was sent that this was not about immigration transgressions at all, but about something else. It was the Ministry of Home Affairs, for example, which in an insidious way attempted to inject some sensationalism into the drama by denying that the missionaries were being expelled because of spying, and suggesting that the report that possible espionage was involved had emanated from the US Embassy. This was all rather surprising, since no one – not even the conspiracy-obsessed gossips of GT – had claimed that the Mormons might be spies.
Following this the embassy was forced to formally deny that they had ever issued a report of any kind on the subject of the missionaries, or that espionage was involved. “The Embassy’s communications with the Government of Guyana in the case of the U.S. citizen missionaries have been official and diplomatic and, as such, private and privileged,” their statement ran.
No right-thinking person is in any doubt that the US has had nothing public to say on the matter, any more than they believe that the Mormons are spies. After all, wherever two or more Guyanese are gathered together, all will be revealed, and the diplomats from the north can surely garner most of what they think they need to know on the cocktail circuit without resort to missionaries, of all people. In any case, who would seriously believe that a set of youngsters whose knowledge of the world is coterminous with the municipal limits of Salt Lake City, could possibly be useful as secret agents. If they really do represent what the CIA or whoever is recruiting, then the bureaucrats in the American security agencies must be losing their marbles.
Of course, as with all these stories with which this government is involved, there is no end of confusion about the actual facts. In addition, the account of the visa applications, etc, has had various twists and turns over the years, but at its most basic, the Ministry of Home Affairs claims that the 50 Mormons have overstayed and have not been in possession of valid work permits since November 2004, April 2005, April 2007, January 2008 and March 2009, respectively. One can only observe that the missionaries come for a stint of two years, so how do the dates 2004 and 2005 come into the story? If indeed there are Mormons without the requisite documentation who have been here since 2004, why is it only now that the ministry is getting worked up about them? The Mormons have said that they applied for extensions, something with which the Ministry agrees; thereafter, however, the accounts diverge. Home Affairs says the work permits and extensions were denied, while the church’s Director of Public Affairs, Mr Leslie Sobers, says that as far as he knows, no responses were received.
Whatever the case, the meeting with the President on Wednesday produced an agreement that the 50 Mormons would leave the country voluntarily within thirty days. (What, incidentally, was the President doing intervening personally in a minor immigration matter?) The government also made it clear that it would allow other Mormons to come. It all seemed very perplexing; why insist that the present complement leave, and then allow newcomers in? Why not just allow those already here to stay for the time requested?
Even that arrangement was amended by Friday. Officials of the church met with a group from the Ministry of Home Affairs, (not including Minister Rohee), where, according to Mr Sobers, it was decided that the church would continue its humanitarian work in Guyana “after this matter is settled.” He also said that certain guidelines for the church had been established, which he was not at liberty to discuss, so that a similar issue did not arise in future. The church had also asked that certain key members be allowed to stay, and had been promised that work permits would be granted to those persons.
As said earlier, all of this could have been sorted out much earlier with absolutely no fanfare, so it suggests that the contretemps might not have been triggered by immigration issues per se. The key to the mystery, no doubt, lies in the guidelines given to the church. These cannot have been about adhering to the immigration requirements, since the latter are not a secret; they are the law of the land and require no clandestine advisories. So what is it that has so annoyed the government that it felt it had to put on a pantomime to send a message, and then lay down guidelines for the future which have not been made public?
The Mormons place great emphasis on missionary work, something which does not resonate well with all religious groups here. Christianity and Islam are proselytizing faiths, however, and they have been sending their missionaries here since the nineteenth century. While the Mormons are particularly resolute in their missionizing, they are by no means the only ones who fall into this category. Could it be that the government is concerned, for example, about their approach to other religions in a multi-faith society? If so, why raise this issue now (assuming it is an issue at all), especially in this contentious way? If nothing else, the government has shown in the past that it is not insensitive to the need to operate as if treading on eggshells when dealing with religious matters.
It is possible, of course, the administration may have taken the opportunity to trumpet a message to the Americans, although if so, probably only incidentally. It has plenty of other more conventional means of conveying its sentiments to Washington, although it is always conceivable that this piece of theatre will transmit a feeling that cannot be articulated via the normal channels.
Be all that as it may, at the bottom of it all one cannot avoid the suspicion that politics is in the mix somewhere, since this is the only thing which really excites the ruling party. Could it be that the perception in ruling circles is that the Mormon Church here is guilty of some indiscretion in its ‘social partnerships,’ or that its humanitarian work in the interior is a source of unease? When the Amerindians are involved, even the gift of toilets from a source other than the PPP produces an irrational reaction, as Santa Rosa learned the hard way. The nation waits for Act II.