The government has told the Organisation of American States (OAS) that the situation in Guyana with regards to Linden is “precarious” and Secretary-General of the grouping Jose Miguel Insulza said that dialogue is the best way to deal with the problem.
The Linden issue was raised at Wednesday’s meeting of the OAS Permanent Council in Washington at the request of the permanent mission of Guyana. Guyana’s Permanent Representative, Ambassador Bayney Karran outlined the events, giving a background of the electricity tariffs in Linden and the escalation of protests since July 18 when three protestors were killed and about 20 injured.
Karran, according to an audio recording of his opening remarks, said that the government of Guyana appreciates the opportunity to bring to the attention of the OAS permanent council, the recent developments in Guyana “which pose risks to the stability of the country and to its democratic traditions”.
He noted the developments following the last general elections on November 28, 2011 and pointed out that the combined opposition has a one seat majority in the country’s legislature, which is a first for Guyana. “The government has been challenged at every level in the legislature with the speaker and the deputy speaker being elected from the opposition. The opposition taking control of the parliamentary committees and the reduction of the government’s 2012 annual budget by approximately US$100 million,” he said.
The Ambassador said that the cuts emerged after several meetings between the government and opposition. He said that the government has been forced to approach the court to rule on several issues that have taken place in the National Assembly. Despite the court’s ruling on the budget cuts and the government’s return to the legislature to restore these allocations as recently as August 9, the opposition parties in contempt of court opposed the same budgetary heads again, Karran told the OAS.
“In this charged environment in the legislature, the opposition reneged on an agreement on April 19, 2012 to support the introduction of tariff increases in the Linden Township, one of their strongholds. This is the signal event that led to and built up to the unrest that emerged on July 18, 2012, the killing of three persons, injuries, loss of public and private property,” the ambassador said.
He provided a background to electricity tariffs in Linden and said that the increasing cost of subsidies in the national budget to the community has placed a major strain on resources and is unsustainable. In the last five years, the subsidies amounted to over approximately US$40 million, Karran said. He noted that Linden residents do not pay the same electricity rates as the rest of Guyana and said that Lindeners pay between $5 and $7 dollars per kilowatt hours versus $64 per Kilowatt hour for the rest of the country. Attempts to standardize the rates span several decades and have been resisted, Karran said.
He recalled the opposition reneging on the agreement to gradually increase the electricity tariffs from July 1. “The situation in Linden following this announcement was marked by agitation by extremists from both within and outside the community and a refusal to have any increases in the tariff rates,” Karran said.
“Between April 30 and July 1, the situation at the political level in the township was fraught with conflict and government officials found it difficult to work in that environment to reason with community leaders on the issue,” he outlined. Karran said that the government realized that other communities were paying keen interest and there was a risk that they could refuse to pay their existing electricity rate. “The government was therefore placed in a position where the reduced subsidy and the increased tariffs for the linden township could no longer be avoided,” he said and recalled the announcing of the new rates which would bring the community up to approximately 50% of what the rest of the country was paying.
The ambassador recalled the start of the July 18 protests. “Violence erupted during the protests. The police deployed tear smoke. Three people were fatally shot and several others injured. The crowd then went on a rampage and burned several properties in the township. The small numbers of the police and the fire service were
prevented from reaching the fires by the crowds,” he said.
Karran said that the government expressed concern and committed to a full investigation and later met with stakeholders. He said that the opposition made three demands of which the government agreed to two. Firstly, that an independent commission of inquiry be launched inclusive of a foreign presence in the composition of a commission and that the commanding officer of the police be removed from the area. The government did not support the third demand for the resignation of the Minister of Home Affairs, he told the OAS.
Karran recalled the progress of the talks as the unrest continued. However, he said that the Regional Chairman and others on July 24- the day the initial five-day protest was scheduled to end- “demanded” that the protest be extended for 50 more days and did not disclose their talks with the government or agreement reached at the time.
The ambassador said that at the August 1 funeral of the three Lindeners, key opposition politicians encouraged protesters to continue their activities. He said that throughout the government continued to negotiate in good faith and at no point did it abort the process. He said that as talks continued “any attempt to return to normalcy was frustrated with new impediments and conditionalities although the government repeatedly committed to postponing the July 1st tariff increases pending the findings and recommendations of the mutually acceptable technical team.”
Karran recalled the burning of buildings in Linden over several days and the agreement that was finally reached. “Throughout these 38 days, the majority of residents have urged the government to take measures to return the area to normalcy and many have attempted to go back to work. However, the actions of extremists elements have scared and intimidated people from returning to work and have escalated tensions with acts of arson and mob rule being committed in the area,” he said.
“The government wishes to underscore that this prolonged period would not have been possible without the complicity of the leading opposition parties to refuse or neglect to call off the protest as well as the advocacy and misinformation spread by certain media and social networking sites,” he declared.
He added that the “government is deeply concerned about this new political environment and the conduct of the official parliamentary parties and fringe elements following the November 28, 2011 elections. The government is therefore cautioning that the situation in Guyana is precarious and is one that warrants close attention by our fellow member states in the OAS,” Karran told the OAS.
Insulza said that the OAS is very concerned about the situation. “We think that dialogue is the best way to deal with this matter,” he said while adding that the most important thing is that the OAS is ready to support the efforts of the Guyanese people and the commission of inquiry. It is very important that judgment is not rushed into, he said.
Several other country representatives made comments.
