APNU and the AFC have both signalled that they would be taking strong action against Minister of Home Affairs Clement Rohee if the government continues to ignore the no-confidence vote passed in the National Assembly against him.
Writing in the Sunday Stabroek yesterday, APNU’s shadow minister on finance, Carl Greenidge argued that the decent thing for the minister to have done was to follow the convention and resign.
“He now hides behind the shirt tail of the President. Unfortunately for him, the President has no veto as in the case of a Bill. Refusal to act on instructions carried in a motion constitutes contempt. As a consequence, the APNU has already decided that until Mr. Rohee resigns they will entertain no bill laid by him, extend no courtesies to him as a speaker and approve no monies for his” ministry, Greenidge said in the letter. Sittings of the National Assembly resume today following the mid-year recess.
The House on July 30th passed the no-confidence motion against the minister but since then the government has been resolute in its support for Rohee and has even mounted a High Court challenge.
The legal challenge was made at a time when the opposition publicly stated that it would be exploring other options to ensure he demits office.
Calls for the Home Affairs Minister‘s sacking came after three persons were shot dead by police during a protest in Linden on July 18th. They were at the time protesting against electricity tariff increases.
“AFC is thinking along the same line [as APNU] because that is what the practices and processes and other West-minster democracies have indicated is the actions to be taken by opposition that are in the majority so it is the convention if the government of the day are being arrogant and strong-headed knowing that the convention is he ought to resign. These are some of the options those opposition parties should have,” Leader of the Alliance For Change (AFC) Khemraj Ramjattan told Stabroek News yesterday when contacted.
He said some of those options include preventing Rohee from speaking in parliament and if the president still insists that he continue as minister the opposition can exercise whatever power it has at budget time.
However, he cautioned that they would have to look at the politics of the issue carefully as they “cannot just wildly come out and say this is the position.”
“Because ordinary policemen would definitely be affected by a budget that cuts the ministry, you would have a lot of people who had nothing to do with it being very much affected adversely and we will have to weigh that in the context of the nonsense [Cabinet Secretary Dr] Roger Luncheon, [Presidential Advisor on Governance] Gail Teixeira and the president have been getting on with,” the AFC head said.
He said the opposition would be the “conscience” of the nation on this and would make rational decisions.
“But we would not allow this eye pass to happen, all the conventions that we know apply to Westminster-type democracy and democracies like ours are being flouted and violated to the extreme by the president and his instruments in Gail Teixeira, [Attorney General] Anil Nandlall and Roger Luncheon.”
Meanwhile, Greenidge in his letter argued that Rohee is accountable to the House for overseeing the policy governing police performance. He said that he is statutorily responsible for such policy rather than for operations but he is fond, however, of issuing direct instructions to line officers who are in law directly answerable to the Commissioner of Police (COP).
“This usurpation of the COP’s functions undermines morale and creates inefficiency in the force,” he contended.
“The policy of shooting to kill unarmed demonstrators when no lives or property are at risk is the basis of human rights crimes and, has never been approved by the House or announced by the Government as formal policy nor has it been formally incorporated into the Force’s (GPF) rules of engagement,” Greenidge said.
To the contrary, he said that Rohee had requested funds to acquire a water cannon on the basis of its efficacy in crowd control and ability to save lives. The use of this equipment was meant to precede that of deadly force. But that was not what occurred on July 18th, Greenidge said, adding that this is probably the only country in the Commonwealth where a water cannon would be sent to the scene of a demonstration after unarmed persons had been killed.
“Shields, batons and other pieces of conventional crowd control equipment were available to the Police force but it chose to outfit officers with assault rifles, revolvers and tear gas only,” he pointed out.
And Ramjattan said that Dr Luncheon is “out of place” to claim that parliament does not have the powers and for not understanding that parliament has a tremendous amount of power and the executive must allow the parliament to exercise this.
“Luncheon is very much out of line in making such utterances and doing it in such a cavalier manner, there must be what is called some executive diplomacy here because rather than being as arrogant as he is knowing that we have a majority in parliament it ought to have lent a kind of tip toe attitude rather than coming kicking down the door,” Ramjattan declared.
He said such behaviour of the government operatives is uncalled for adding that he thinks they believe their “raging bull attitudes is going to bully us, it is not going to bully us, not the Alliance For Change.”
“And quite frankly if he is ready to rumble the AFC is ready to rumble, the AFC is ready to rumble on this issue,” Ramjattan said in reference to Dr Luncheon’s now infamous statement of being ready to rumble when questioned about the government’s refusal to accept the no- confidence vote against Rohee.
On the same day, October 11, violent protests erupted in Agricola leading to a paralysis of the East Bank highway for five hours and the robbing of commuters by gangs.
