My first memory of the kind of substantial blackouts that have recently returned with a vengeance was in 1976, on my return from Cuba after attending the first Guyana/Cuba Joint Commission meeting that was headed on the Guyana side by Senior Minister Desmond Hoyte. That was some 43 years – nearly half a century – ago, and the despondency this type of persistent backwardness breeds perhaps can be best expressed by someone from the actual ‘blackout generation’.
‘Maybe as a child I never thought there would ever be an end to blackouts. I was born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s and it seemed like just the norm. But certainly as an adult, having experienced life in other countries where there are no power outages except in circumstances like natural disasters, I have come to expect that an end to blackouts in Guyana should not be a hope for tomorrow, a possibility for the next year or a maybe in the next decade. The time has long passed when we should have resolved this problem.’ (Mosa Telford. SN 15/06/2019)
She says that Guyanese are very humble, they peacefully protest and are vocal in expressing their grievances but do not riot, and that the various governments have done little to end the situation because ‘we have allowed them to’. She opines that Guyana is potentially a very rich country but yet ‘many of our citizens would eat bricks if they were edible, would engage in self-destruction if not for family and friends, or would run away if they could. Well, many have run away.’ After outlining some of the difficulties persistent lengthy blackouts pose to both the business and the domestic sectors, Ms. Telford ends in despair: ‘When will we permanently see an end to blackouts? It is time.’
I suspect that she realises that there is no ‘we’ but ‘them’ and ‘us’, and herein lies the essential reason the electricity and many other problems have entrenched themselves with no end in sight. Furthermore, not rioting is relatively recent and its being so must be credited to draconian measures taken by the PPP/C during the Jagdeo era that is also largely responsible for the increased antipathy African Guyanese feel towards the PPP/C. These conclusions drawn from Ms. Telford’s portrayal directed me to a 26 May 2019 panel discussion ‘Reflections & A Way Forward’ that was streamed by Globespan 24+7.
The discussion was moderated by Mr. Denis Chabrol with panelists former president Mr. Ramotar, Dr. David Hinds, executive member of the Working People’s Alliance and Mr. Timothy Jonas the chairperson of A New And United Guyana. Mr. Ramotar and the other discussants agreed that an ethnic/racial political problem exists and has stymied the kind of progress Guyana could otherwise have made. The other guests suggested that our present constitution was not suited to our kind of society and needs to be changed if we are to progress but Mr. Ramotar demurred. On quite a few occasions, when asked to explain what he believes is the answer to the persistent ethnic problem and backwardness, he sought to divert the issue by relating to his audience how wicked and destructive the PNCR was to the PPP/C when the latter was in government. However, the moderator eventually succeeded in pinning him down, and as if oblivious of the damaging implications the position he was taking were for the PPP that he was otherwise staunchly defending, Mr. Ramotar’s only suggestion was that the constitution is fine and ‘should be respected and be left to work.’ For him, it was the opposition that did not allow the PPP/C the democratic right to govern which it had won fairly at various elections that was responsible for the turmoil and killing that took place.
As it related to the reason for unrest this is not an unusual PPP/C position; former prime minister Samuel Hinds made a similar analysis when he claimed that President David Granger’s referral to the deaths that took place in the ten years between 1998 and 2008 as ‘Jagdeo killings’ was misleading. According to him, a ‘submerged subterranean killing wave has its origin in the rejection of the PPP/C win at our 1997 elections, by an opposing and extreme criminal fringe with ethno-political pretensions and links, which, when our national security forces were not having any success in apprehending them, evoked a similar irregular counter-force. The period from 1998 to 2008 was one of great testing of our peoples and our country. …. Rather than make it appear that Jagdeo and/or the PPP/C was the cause of those troubles, I submit that it should be recognised that our (PPP/C) handling of that period, though criticised from many directions, saw our nation through as a whole, avoiding the intensified polarization which was intended’ (KN: 02/02/2018).
There is some truth in this position and it is perhaps for this reason that the PNCR, now in government and establishing enquiries in all manner of issues of lesser importance, has not seen fit to bring the closure many of their own supporters are desirous of having by a comprehensive inquiry into these ‘Jagdeo killings’ and fairly compensating those who lost their relatives and loved ones. However, being an insider the former prime minister may not have been able to properly assess the situation, for the intense polarization which he believed was avoided by the draconian and illegal methods the PPP/C adopted to quell the threat to its regime was substantially responsible for its losing the elections in 2011 and 2015.
Although the PPP/C government was provoked into adopting a strategy that, as Mosa Telford observed, ended the rioting and disruptions; to eliminate the long term danger to its regime the system that party attempted to establish – ethnic domination – can safely be categorized as inhuman and to this day that party has done nothing substantial to placate the African Guyanese people. Therefore, Mr. Ramotar and the PPP/C need to explain what strategy they have devised to prevent the PNCR from confronting them in a manner similar to what it did when they were previously in government under the same majoritarian constitutional arrangement.
Remember it is the PPP/C that has been persistently attempting to convince us that the PNCR has not changed and if anything it may have become even more evil. So, alternatively, please state how you intend to successfully confront that party and its supporters if they again decide to challenge your rule. Even if as I suspect you will not reply please let it be known that you do not intend to respond in the similar manner you did when you were last confronted in government. Put simply Mr. Ramotar, since you seem to believe that the PPP/C can rule alone, you badly need to convince the Guyanese people that you will not again attempt to overcome our ‘them’ and ‘us’ politics by suppression or the kind of subterfuge in which the current regime is involved!
