The Government of Guyana (GoG) yesterday condemned Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo for “race baiting,” after he claimed that there is “an assault on people of Indian origin” during a speech at an event in New York recently.
“Racism is the well known last refuge of the politically desperate and the coalition government calls on all right-thinking and patriotic Guyanese to reject Mr Jagdeo’s continued attempts at sowing racial divisions in our society,” the GoG said in a statement issued last evening.
During his speech, which was being circulated yesterday on social media, Jagdeo, a former president, contended that there is “an assault” on democracy in Guyana. “There is an assault on people of Indian origin. There is an assault on supporters of the PPP. What we thought would never return to Guyana, in just one short year, has returned in full force and even worse in some regards than the [Forbes] Burnham era,” he said, while accusing the government of stealing transported lands and implementing new taxes that mainly target the rural poor. “…And you know who live in the rural areas? It’s mainly our supporters. And so our country has taken a turn for the worse. It’s something we have to live with but I want to say to you, we are going to work hard and whenever the elections come again, we are going to take back Guyana, we are going to take it back from these people,” he added.
In its statement in response, the GoG voiced its condemnation of Jagdeo’s comments, which it dubbed “irresponsible, hateful, race baiting and malicious fabrications.
“At a time when our people are focused on the efforts to foster closer relations and achieve a greater level of social cohesion, the coalition government considers it reprehensible that the Opposition Leader, Mr Jagdeo chooses to sow seeds of division, discord and race hate.”
It called his claim of an assault on people of Indian origin despicable and baseless, while asserting that the policies of the APNU+AFC coalition government are designed “to achieve the good life for all Guyanese, not a handpicked few” as it said was the case under the PPP/C.
The government said that while Jagdeo spoke to a predominantly Indo-Guyanese audience, he tried to inject a feeling that they were victims and added that the recent census has shown that the exodus of Indo-Guyanese had not abated during Jagdeo’s 12-year tenure as President.
It pointed out that the single largest outflow of emigrants went to the United States of America, where they live and work under the presidency of an African American.
The statement added that under Jagdeo’s tenure, Guyana witnessed the incestuous relationship with drug lords that “spawned the death of hundreds of young people and several massacres and assassinations,” including that of a sitting government minister. It went on to say that Jagdeo was not only insulting the intelligence of Indian-Guyanese but all Guyanese who have repudiated him for the pervasive corruption under his regime.
The statement emphasised that the coalition government remains committed to stabilising the economy after years of “lawlessness, nepotism, corruption, cronyism, mismanagement, misrule and flagrant misuse of resources.
“Though alarming, these hateful divisive utterances are not surprising, as they represent what appears to be a well-orchestrated plan of propaganda which has been spewed locally but which is now being taken internationally by the opposition PPP,” it added, while saying that all ‘Jaganites’ would hang their heads in shame that Jagdeo has “descended into the racist cesspit while pulling with him, the PPP that had once boasted of a credible record as multi-racial party.”
The statement said that Guyana, under the “rainbow coalition of the APNU+AFC,” has a genuinely multiracial government, made up of six political parties and all ethnicities. “Guyana has a functioning parliamentary democracy, an independent judiciary and a free press. There are no political prisoners in Guyana and unlike under the regime of Mr Jagdeo, no one has been charged with treason,” the statement said, while also pointing out that there have been no political killings.
“Mr Jagdeo ought to swallow his spurious racist claims over the fact that under the PPP administration Indo-Guyanese rice farmers were tear-gassed and assaulted and mainly Indo-Guyanese sugar workers were brought to their knees as the Jagdeo-led administration dragged the sugar industry into bankruptcy and indebtedness for over $100 billion,” the statement added.
