Dear Editor,
I have been following the exchange of letters between two Guyanese – Wesley Kirton and Vishnu Bisram – on the issue of the legality of the Government of Guyana from 1968 to 1992. Mr Bisram claims that Mr Kirton implied that the government of that period did not rig elections. I read no such implication in Kirton’s letter. Mr Kirton in fact said there were credible complaints to international organizations about irregularities in the electoral process but in the view of the international community there was not sufficient evidence to warrant any action which might have been meted out to a government not legally elected. Mr Kirton is right.
I can cite many examples where collective action has been taken by the international community to deal with atrocities, including fraudulent elections, and Guyana does not count among these countries. One example is Cuba which remains suspended from the Organization of American States.
It is not unusual for political parties that have remained in the political wilderness for extended periods to claim rigged elections. It’s often an excuse for their inability to fire up the imagination of the electorate or for their failed policies when they formed the government, or in some cases because of a political ideology which is not in sync with the electorate.
Mr Bisram claims that Mr Kirton, “shows a naïve understanding of international relations” because he failed to recognize that international law provides for nations to deal with each other even if a government is not legal.
Mr Kirton may have a naïve understanding of the norms of diplomacy but Mr Bisram, who says he studied international relations at graduate school, seems to have no understanding at all. If he did he would know that internal law and diplomacy provide for action to be taken against countries that violate international law and conventions. In cases such as Cuba, at one time Pakistan, in the case of the apartheid regime in South Africa, in Myanmar and in the case of Zimbabwe, to name a few, the international community has taken collective action against these countries at one time or another for violations of the law. No such action, which usually takes the form of sanctions, suspension from regional or international organizations, economic or military embargoes or even criminal action against a despotic leader, has ever been taken or even contemplated against any Government of Guyana. No court of law in Guyana or anywhere in the world has ever ruled the elections in Guyana during the period 1968 to 1992 fraudulent.
Given all the facts I have outlined thus far I really do not understand how this good gentleman could declare the Government of Guyana of that era, illegal. He needs to understand that not because he, the political opposition of the day or several academics and journalists may think so, makes it so. They can characterize the government as brutal, corrupt or racist, since that would be simply their view to which they are entitled, but to thrust upon themselves the role of judge and jury in pronouncing on what is legal and not legal is unacceptable. Innocence or guilt, legality or illegality can only be determined by a competent authority under the law, which Mr Bisram is not.
I am including below the opening paragraphs of a news item:
23 June 2008 – “Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon today urged authorities in Zimbabwe to postpone the presidential run-off election slated for Friday, in light of ongoing violence and the ‘understandable decision’ by the opposition candidate to withdraw from the polls.
‘Conditions do not exist for free and fair elections right now in Zimbabwe,’ Mr. Ban told reporters in New York. There has been too much violence, too much intimidation. A vote held in these conditions would lack all legitimacy.”
In a nutshell it is Mr Bisram who has got it all wrong, not Mr Kirton.
Yours faithfully,
Carl Cheong
USA
