Dear Editor,
Why is the state’s resources not distributed equally among all the people?
Speak up Nigel for we believe that your call for peaceful street protests will lead to a rebirth of the people. It is time for less talk and more action. For how long can a nation continue to live through the vacillation of this corrupt regime? For how long can a nation withstand a feeble President who has surrendered his administration to his immediate predecessor and his cronies? We the authors of this letter want to fully endorse the call by the Chairman of the Alliance For Change (AFC) for peaceful “mass street protests” against this inept, uncaring and dictatorial administration.
We want to thank Mr. Denis Chabrol and the Demerara Waves Team for bringing these statements by Mr. Nigel Hughes to the attention of the nation by way of article at – http://www.caribnewsdesk.com/news/6218-afc-calls-for-mass-street-protests. We do not know why the other private media houses did not publish such an important public statement at such an important and critical juncture of our nation’s history.
However, we are fully aware of the legal threats that have been made against the public media via letters by some senior operatives in the regime.
Our message today is one of clarification. To our East Indian brothers and sisters, this is not a PNC-styled `mo fiya, slow fiya’ protest action; this will be peaceful protest actions designed to protect and promote the interests of all the people in Guyana. The AFC’s vision is to get all the people to protest on their own street corners in their own villages as brothers and sisters speaking with one voice against the oppressive regime and to demand basic and proper services from the Government.
They must demand that the regime safeguard their security, and provide water, light, good streets, proper drainage, jobs, etc. This is a peaceful protest grounded in Gandhian principles of civil resistance and non-violence. Frederick Douglass once said “Power concedes nothing without a demand.”
These are perilous days that demand co-operation among all our people who are
suffering massively at the hand of the cabal. Our reading of the situation is that the AFC is guided by one single hard-headed thought – distributing the wealth of the nation in the Treasury to benefit all the people and not only the Economic Barons who have now hijacked the administration and have coveted the people’s resources. The question is “why is the state resources not distributed equally among all the people?”
One just has to open the newspapers every day and they will find numerous cases where the people’s economic and physical safety is totally threatened thanks to the poor and inept public policies of the administration. They even have the audacity to ask the people to increase the debt ceiling of this nation from G$100 billion to G$150billion so they can commit the people and their children to more debt in the future. One of the most inept and backward policies of the regime is that most of the street cameras which cost the taxpayers millions to install are not functioning and those that do are controlled by the office of the president and not the police whose job is to apprehend those who commit crimes.
The post-Jagan PPP are way past the point of return to good and transparent
governance and that is why we fully endorse Nigel Hughes’s comments. The chance at political equality for all our people, which was won in 1992, is now lost and is likely gone forever unless we have a new Government –preferably an AFC Government that will bring commonsense and dignity back to the nation. But this is up to the people.
Today, the State of Guyana has been turned on its head by the actions of a small greedy and selfish clique, numbering less than 50. This small group has now concentrated into their own hands an almost complete control over the people’s property, money, labour and most importantly the people’s lives. This economic cabal complains that the AFC is seeking to remove the regime. But this is furthest from the truth; what they are really complaining about is that the AFC has been in the forefront seeking to stop their reckless use of the state’s natural resources and to take away their control of the Treasury—the people’s money— as they continue to treat it like it is their father’s bank account and give that power back to the people. In vain, they continue to hide behind a ridiculous Constitution as they continue their immoral plundering of the Treasury and the state’s natural resources.
We prefer a Government that rules with a spirit of charity and goodwill rather than one that is corrupt, greedy and indifferent to the plight of the people, especially the poor and the powerless. The Government is totally ignorant and indifferent to the plight of the masses. Therefore, as patriots of Guyana, we call on the AFC to work non-stop from sunrise to sunset with the people, especially the 144,000 who did not vote in the last election to educate them on the issues so that they can gain their support and win the next election. In such unity, with one people and with one destiny in mind and a clear resolution, this immoral regime will be defeated in the next election and all Guyanese will rise and begin the task of rebuilding our beloved green land of Guyana under an AFC administration.
Peace!
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Asquith Rose and Harish S. Singh