Let me take time out to wish the members and executives of the Peoples National Congress Reform every success at the party’s General Council Meeting scheduled to be held today. This first meeting, after the 16th Biennial Delegates Congress, is being held at a time when the country is trying to grapple with even more deep-seated and dangerous issues. It must therefore be our mission to emerge out of this important meeting with a renewed resolve to continue brazenly to address the excesses of the administration. Let us remain focused on the issues and arrive, as we mostly do, at consensus on how to tackle the many issues and bring relief to the entire nation. I applaud the party’s stance on the issue of torture, and remain impressed with the number of actions taken so far to remind Guyanese of the evils of such action. We must continue to work to ensure that the perpetrators of torture and their sponsors face the full extent of the law. We must make the world become acutely aware of these human rights abuses that continue to take place under the watch of President Jagdeo, the Nobel Peace Prize nominee, and ask whether his nomination comes as a reward for leadership demonstrated here. There is the unending suffering of poor people as a result of the still arbitrarily imposed 16% Value Added Tax (VAT). There is staggering corruption in government, as indicated by the recently released report by Transparency International (TI). There are the many constitutional breaches, and the government’s support of the actions of RUSAL which are likely to result in even more impoverishment and workers in the mining industry being sent home with a raw deal. There is increasing violence in the school system which puts our children in very vulnerable situations. We must ask why social workers/counsellors are not placed in every school to deal with the many issues our children are dealing with daily. There is the unstoppable criminal enterprise which is affecting every citizen from the vendor in Bourda Market to the store-owner on Regent Street, to the overseas Guyanese who hopes to relax in the confines of the family home.
The problems before us are many, too many to discussed at one meeting, but our ability to recognize them as urgent will help us to stay on course. Let the political adventurers attempt their usual distraction move; our mission is a bigger one that hinges on bettering the life of every Guyanese. General Council must provide us that forum where we address the dangerous state of fear in Guyana; we must speak out against orchestrated psychological ploys employed by the rulers. To be fearful cannot be an option. It was Thomas Jefferson who said, “When the people fear the government there is tyranny; when the government fears the people there is liberty.” We must never lose sight of the importance of that liberty.
Let’s have a great meeting.
Yours faithfully,
Lurlene Nestor
