Dear Editor,
According to Presidential Advisor, Gail Teixeira, “October 5th 1992, saw the hosting of the first free and fair general and regional election in Guyana”, she also extolled the virtues of the PPP/C’s “outstanding democratic leadership that championed the cause of the working class” over the past 20 years of uninterrupted power.
Editor as I read Ms Teixeira’s quote, I was forced to go back to research the principles of democracy to ensure that I was fair in my assessment of her words.
The well respected and learned US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton; in a message to the Arab Spring countries, encouraged these fledgling democracies to embrace the principles of democracy. Secretary Clinton stated that “All political parties… have a responsibility to their people to abide by the basic tenets upon which this body is founded: reject violence; uphold the rule of law; respect the freedoms of speech, association, and assembly; safeguard religious freedom and tolerance; protect the rights of women and minorities; give up power if defeated at the polls; and avoid inciting conflicts that pull societies apart. These are standards against which we are all measured, and which we need to commit to uphold together,” she said.
Editor, if we evaluate the PPP/C’s performance over the past 20 years using the tenets of democracy offered by Secretary Clinton, then surely we have to conclude that the PPP/C government has failed to deliver Democracy to Guyana. At no time in Guyana’s history [since independence] has more violence been meted out to the Guyanese people than in the past 20 years. The extrajudicial killings of 400 African youths, rampant crime due to the increase in well connected drug dealers and the innumerable slayings of young people by members of the GPF, all under the PPP/C government preclude them from claiming progress on the basic democratic tenets of rejecting violence and upholding the rule of law.
The PPP/C continues to monopolize the distribution of media in Guyana while they routinely reject or mire in bureaucracy, applications by private media entities to expand their own networks to cover more of the country. Editor, in 20 years the people of Linden have been forced to watch one government-run TV channel, protestors are shot and killed like animals in the street and public servants are harassed, fired or transferred out of region for associating or supporting the opposition. Surely the PPP/C cannot lay claim to the democratic principles of freedom of speech, association and assembly.
Editor, few will honestly defend the PPP/C’s record of protecting the rights of women and minorities in Guyana. Today racial discrimination is rampant [see Jagdeo v Kissoon], Indigenous citizens still live largely without access to decent roads, running water, proper sewage disposal and access to education; consequently their children have the highest rate of under 5 mortality in Guyana; women in Guyana are underpaid and under-promoted; often young girls are pressured to exchange sexual favours for a living and on what seems like a daily basis, women are injured, maimed and killed due to domestic violence. To date, there has been no state of emergency called, no national campaign, no infusion of revenue to fund programmes, no national network of safe-houses across Guyana, no introduction of programmes to educate young people on this scourge, no consistent counseling, no training of police officers to handle these issues, no serious efforts to prosecute offenders. Editor, I predict that domestic violence is the number one cause of death of women under the age of 50 years in Guyana. The evidence is clear, the PPP/C have failed to protect the rights of women and minorities in Guyana.
The PPP/C have struggled with even the most basic and common sense tenet of avoiding the incitement of conflicts that pull societies apart. One only has to peruse the State run, taxpayer- funded newspaper to read some of the most vicious, racist and divisive propaganda pieces which serve the purpose of playing and preying on fears and old stereotypes, simply to drive a wedge and build a wall between Indo and Afro Guyanese.
By any measure, the PPP/C government has failed to deliver on the promise of true democratic reform to Guyana. They have failed to reject violence and to uphold the rule of law; they have failed to respect freedoms of speech, association and assembly, they have failed to protect the rights of women and minorities and they have failed to avoid inciting conflicts that pull societies apart.
Yours faithfully,
Karen Abrams