Dear Editor,
Please let me from the outset make it pellucid, that I have no interest in the internal decision-making mechanisms of A Partnership for National Unity (APNU) neither do I have any intention of challenging the same. What I have is a profound difficulty with the way young Member of Parliament Vanessa Kissoon was treated at the last sitting of parliament.
Ms Vanessa Kissoon is a sitting member of the National Executive Commit-tee of the Guyana Youth and Student Movement (GYSM), youth arm of the People’s National Congress and a Member of Parliament of seven years of distinguished service. Thus by virtue or her office she should have been granted at the minimum, the common courtesy of a notification of the change in her seating arrangements.
What is more disgusting is the deafening silence of the National Chairman of the GYSM who himself is a member of the august assembly and by extension the executive of the GYSM. This to my mind gives tacit support to the crude and disrespectful treatment of young people.
If this is the manner in which the political leadership will treat the young people of the party and moreso Guyana, then the youths of this country have a lot of rethinking to do. It is time for the youths of this country to demand equal treatment and be seen as equal partners at the decision-making table.
I wish to say without fear of contradiction that at no time during my tenure in the GYSM and that of my predecessors such a level of disrespect would have been tolerated. Thus an unequivocal apology must be demanded from the Chief Whip and the intellectual authors of the decision forthwith.
Yours faithfully,
Bevon Currie
Former National
Secretary Guyana Youth
and Student Movement