Dear Editor,
I note with considerable unhappiness that the Government is meeting with President Jimmy Carter’s Carter Center.
Many of us have pleaded that the principal political leaders must sit and craft an Agenda and Agreements to address the deep fears and apprehensions of the Afro and Indo communities.
These fears are extant; the result of the post-slavery divide and rule colonial policy ignited in the mid-1950s by the ‘Apan Jhat’ campaign engineered by a certain group.
As a young activist I was involved in the pre-1953 struggle for Independence, witnessed the miasmas of the Cold War and the determination of our erstwhile masters to control our natural resources and more particularly our way of thinking.
When we hoisted the Golden Arrowhead, on the morning of Independence Day and our two illustrious patriots, Dr. Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham embraced each other, our hope for unity and a new day surged.
From my vantage point external forces and other circumstances placed a wedge between the two major groups and let’s face the reality, the two political parties.
The thought of the Carter Center’s continued involvement in our political affairs is an anathema not only to our independence, but an assault on our dignity as a free people whose ancestors experienced horrors and brutality of slavery – the hardships and woes of indentureship.
I hope that our Leaders on all sides of our political divide would stand up against this intervention which I warned against in 1992.
I believe that our ‘friends’ can serve humanity better if they address the crisis in parts of Europe, the hate shootings we saw recently in New Zealand, the Netherlands and United States.
On the other-hand, citizens of every ethnic, religious and age group should recognize that our problems are not deep-seated and therefore, capable of resolution.
Key members of every section of our society must be the ‘bridge over troubled water.’
I’ve been to every corner, nook and cranny of Guyana, there is no hate but love among all of our people, be they Amerindians, Indo-Guyanese, African, Chinese, Portuguese and that growing group of mixed people.
I believe, the lingering suspicions can be erased if we are serious by putting an end to all forms of injustice and corruption which spiraled over the last quarter century.
It is no secret I have written and appealed to our two principal leaders proposing a menu of measures but I believe difficult and tedious as a process it will be, it is worth the effort.
Our young Leaders perhaps lack the emotional experience of the 50s and early 60s and may do well to call upon the likes of the Eusi Kwayana, Ashton Chase, Sase Narine and others who lived through that period and can value peace, love and tranquility.
Certainly, the involvement of a group with roots in the deep south of the United States can hardly contribute to the dreams and aspirations of Guyanese to be one people, one nation, with one destiny.
Hope springs eternal in the human breast and this ‘gongo’ approach and threats coming from statements in the Opposition Camp will not help us.
Our young people, journalists, our Pastors, our Pandits, Moulvis, must work fervently towards a peaceful pathway.
Yours faithfully,
Hamilton Green
