Dear Editor,
Since my last letter in which I lobbied for the Oliver Tambo award to be given to President Burnham, I have been castigated by some people who called and asked me how I could take such a position. The answer I gave is that if the award was given to Fidel Castro, then why not to my godfather, and furthermore, I asked them, if one had no choice at all, would you prefer to have lived under the rule of President Castro as against President Burnham.
All the callers admitted that they, with no other choices, would have preferred to have lived under Burnham’s rule. Therefore, I cautioned, President Burnham really deserved the award if Fidel Castro already had received his. Each caller at the end of our conversation, I think, started to re-think their position and that is why there should be a national effort by our citizens to petition the South African authorities to re-instate the Oliver Tambo award to President Burnham. His strong support for the freedom fighters was endorsed by an overwhelming majority of Guyanese, including Cheddi Jagan and the PPP.
Editor, the fundamental choices facing this nation rest, not on national elections because the people have spoken, but on local elections and the empowering of our citizens. National elections have produced a political stalemate as we can all see when we look at the gridlock in Parliament, and unfortunately, national elections have made the Guyanese citizens pawns in the hands of the political elites in this country who constantly lead us down a path of division and disunity. We need local elections in order to strengthen democracy; it is really the only thing that counts and the only thing that works politically. Democracy is serious business, and people have for ages died fighting for that bedrock of development in many countries in times past. Local elections will bring our outstanding citizens into leadership positions in their respective areas and give the nation a broad pool of future leaders with youth and vibrancy pushing to the forefront.
Where are our local elections which were promised by Mr Ramotar and which was the major reason I was on the PPP list of candidates in the last general elections? Editor, I campaigned wholeheartedly for Mr Ramotar because he promised me that he would hold local elections within a year of taking office, and that has proven to be a mirage. It is just like the mirage of Mr. Ashni Singh’s budget, which, if Cheddi Jagan was alive and in command of the opposition’s parliamentary majority, would have been cut, maybe even more than the current opposition is doing. Furthermore, the mirage-making by this government extends to the Skeldon sugar factory, ‘a masterpiece of sugar production’; the hydro power and oil production which will make us ‘powerful and all rich’; the great sea defence and irrigation works which will result in ‘no more flooding’; the new airport costing US$150 million which will bring us ‘many airlines and millions of tourists’; the new bridge across the Demarara which will be built by ‘no more taxation.’
Editor, the mirage of local elections concocted by those in power portends serious consequences, because when government tramples on the peoples’ rights in such a fundamental way, it loses credibility because it has betrayed the very essence of what real democracy is all about. The people of this country should close their eyes, cover their ears and hold their noses shut to any government propaganda and this government’s penchant for casting blame on others, because they have had all the time in the world to bring on what we need the most, and that is local elections to fix our neighbourhoods which central government has proven unable to accomplish even at the most basic level.
Yours faithfully,
Cheddi (Joey) Jagan (Jr)
