The Linden protests has done “great harm” to the image of the town and the “vast majority” of Lindeners want the community to return to normal, according to President Donald Ramotar who also appealed for responsible leadership yesterday.
“The leaders in the country should be responsible. Those who have influence in the community needs to be very responsible at this point in time because they are doing great harm to the image of Linden,” Ramotar told a press conference at the Office of the President. Yesterday was day three of a planned five-day protest against electricity tariff hikes and residents continued to block roads of the major artery to the gold-mining interior. On Wednesday evening, three protesters were fatally shot by police.
Ramotar, in response to a question, agreed that the protests have taken on a “highly political tone” and appealed for responsible leadership. He said that business would be extremely nervous to invest in such an atmosphere and said that one of the major employers in the town, the bauxite-mining company, Bosai is now “quite nervous” about its planned expansion. Other businesses such as one with plans to invest in wood processing are also nervous but “we’re trying to coax them along,” the president said.
Ramotar stressed that the developments are harming the investment and business environment in the region. He noted that Bosai employs more than 500 persons and it has been closed for the past few days and the company has informed that it is reconsidering some further expansion of their business. He added too that a Linden call centre which employs over 150 persons has been affected and could lose overseas contracts if the situation continues. The domestic business sector is also being affected as many workers are afraid to go to work and instead stay in the safety of their homes, the president said.
He said that in discussions with the Regional Chairman, Sharma Solomon, he has emphasized that Linden will suffer “a great setback if these developments are not brought to an end soon.”
The president said that the activities also place great and additional stress on the mining community and regions 7, 8 and 9 because goods destined for these regions from the coast must pass through Linden. He noted that the Mackenzie-Wismar Bridge is open but the roads are being blocked at different points in Linden and it is difficult for transport and people to get through. He said that yesterday, a Ministry of Public Works vehicle was attacked and the crew was “heavily terrorized” and had to take refuge in the police station.
The president said that his information is that the vast majority of Lindeners would like to see normalcy restored. “Many of them want to get back to work, wants to get along with their lives but they are afraid to come out to go to work” because of the atmosphere that prevails at this point in time, he said.
When it was stated that leaders across all the sectors in Linden including church leaders were supporting the protest, Ramotar responded that he does not know if all the leaders supported the protest but “there seems to be a coincidence of agreement in Linden that there needs to be a look again at how this thing should take place.” He further said that he does not think that the business community agrees with the protest, recalling that when he spoke with them he detected concern and eagerness in getting things back to normal and while they made it clear that they thought that some things were too steep the administration is ready to talk. “Let us sit down together, go over the figures, I think this needs to be done by technical people and to go over these things totally and we are ready for that. I have no problem with that and we have no problem in trying to address their concern once we can do so,” he said. He also denied that the government was practising discrimination.
Meantime, questioned by Stabroek News as to whether the administration’s statement on Wednesday that APNU and the AFC are to be blamed for what happened during the protests was appropriate, the president said that it was. He said that this was given the context in which it was made. “I didn’t say they were responsible for what happened on that day but what I meant to say is that in the totality of things because when we had the full discussions, when we had the discussion on these issues and when we had the agreements…it is a totality because I thought we had answered every single question that came from the two opposition parties in the parliament. We had went exhaustively into every single explanation. We thought that they were convinced and they had no more arguments but they then came out and said that they did not agree which means in some way that they have been abandoning the whole thing to extremist leadership. If we had stood together at that time I am convinced that the extreme elements who operates in some of these society that this might not have happened. It was in that context. I wasn’t saying that they were responsible on the day but I was talking about the totality of their actions,” he explained.
The government in its statement late Wednesday night which expressed regret at the shootings had said that the opposition parties, APNU and the AFC “cannot avoid blame for these unfortunate developments.” According to the statement, the opposition parties “organised and allowed their Members of Parliament (MPs), activists and extremists to lead protest against a thoughtful and sensitive programme for the gradual reform of the provision of electricity to the Linden community to deteriorate to such a point of violence and destruction.”
Questioned on why blame was being assigned given the events, Ramotar responded: “I’m a person who likes to deal with reality sometime whether you do it now or you do it next week it is something to…that I felt very strongly about when we were having the talks. I did express those exact views to them during the talks and those same sentiments found themselves in the statement.”
The president also appealed for the press to be responsible in reporting.
