Dear Editor,
Politics is defined as who gets what, how and when. The PPP/C has always embraced the view that the acquisition of power is not an end in itself, but the means to a much greater end, namely to create a prosperous and just society. This is why the PPP during the 1950s and the 1960s incurred the wrath of foreign vested interests because it refused to be a willing pawn in a political arrangement that would have sacrificed the good and well-being of the Guyanese people to enrich the capitalist and monied class.
The position taken by the PPP was based fundamentally on the principle that Guyana belongs to the Guyanese people and therefore the resources of the country must be utilized in a manner that promotes development with a human face. Development, in other words, means very little if it fails to impact on the lives of ordinary people. People therefore must not only be instrumental in the developmental process but at a more fundamental level the end to which all development is directed.
It is this philosophical outlook that informed the developmental agenda of the PPP as a political party and as the ruling party. One of the first measures taken by the PPP/C administration when it assumed the mantle of leadership on October 5, 1992 was a complete re-orientation of the governance mechanism to reflect a concern for the ordinary people. This shift in emphasis found expression in a changing emphasis on the social sectors, more particularly education, health, housing and water.
This shift in emphasis was criticized by the political opposition and some sections of the independent media who argued that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was deliberately being downsized for political reasons. The fact that nothing of significance ever came about in terms of advancing the country’s national interest was not material in the calculations of these opposition elements.
They seem quite comfortable with the then reality of a bloated, oversized and overpriced foreign policy apparatus in the face of growing and widespread poverty in the country while the PNC regime spent an inordinate sum of money not to advance the good of the country and its people, but that of a political cabal which was bent on perpetuating its political life through force, fraud and deception.
Foreign policy today has taken on a new dimension which is to advance the economic standing of the country and to protect the territorial integrity of the country through diplomatic means. Under the PNC regime the focus was on ego gratification of the maximum leader Forbes Burnham, and his desire to assert himself as a Third World leader on the backs of hungry Guyanese.
Yours faithfully,
Hydar Ally
