Dear Editor,
The truth can be a bitter pill, but perhaps this is the moment when we the people will finally be inspired to face the tragic truth of our reality – both African and Indian alike. That truth is that both the PPP/C and the PNCR have lied to us for years. They are no longer the parties of Cheddi Jagan and Forbes Burnham. Both have promoted racial division in order to manipulate their constituencies. The reality is that the political elites from both parties socialise together and engage in business with each other to the tune of millions of dollars, while they keep the people divided. It’s an age old trick.
In fact, the so-called democratic arrangement that we have been saddled with in Guyana was put in place by our colonial masters, who were then, and remain today, the experts when it comes to divide and rule and divide and ruin tactics.
We are all deeply troubled by the events that are unfolding. However, it is clear for all those with eyes to see that both of these parties have employed dirty tricks, both have betrayed the people and the people of Guyana must reject both of them.
This is the bitter pill that supporters on both sides of the divide must swallow if we are to ever achieve justice for all in this beautiful land that we are blessed with.
Perhaps this is the moment when Guyanese of all races, and the large percentage of mixed race Guyanese, will finally see through this racial division that has been used against us for so long. While we fight each other, the white folk laugh as they steal and plunder our land and resources. Land and resources that belong to all Guyanese. Land and resources that our Indigenous, African and Indian ancestors shed blood to build and defend.
We are finally hearing the ruling coalition speak about Guyana’s sovereignty in relation to the international observers. If only we had heard them speak about the importance of our sovereignty during the last five years, as they allowed agencies and entities of white supremacy to call the shots, and gave away our oil and gas.
The country is at a very dangerous crossroads and we need to remember that it was the spreading of false information and rumours that sparked the genocide in Rwanda and the many riots that have resulted in the deaths of Hindus and Muslims in India. We owe it to our people – all Guyanese of all races – to act responsibly.
None of us wants a return of a Jagdeo-led PPP – we can never forget the horror of those days. This is what pushed OVP, despite our serious political and ideological disagreements with the coalition, into a position of critical support for APNU+AFC.
However, the recent turn of events has exposed the political and moral bankruptcy of these two leviathans in such a way that we pray that the Guyanese people will realise that we cannot go back to this arrangement – we need a new beginning. This is not an impossibility. There are many options and ideas that we can explore collectively.
Let us ask ourselves why we were put in the position of having to face a return of a Jagdeo-led PPP in the first place. Everything is contextual. To understand the present situation, we must understand the desperation and very real fear that many stakeholders, and in particular the African population, feel about the prospect of a return to a Jagdeo-led PPP regime. It is fact, not opinion, that during their 23 years in power, the PPP turned Guyana into a narco-state, plagued with nepotism and corruption, extra-judicial killings, death squads and political assassinations. More than 400 African men and youth were murdered and many more were declared ‘disappeared’. We witnessed it because we were on the frontlines. The PPP displayed a vulgar racism toward the African population as they constructed an ethnocratic state that was at the time compared to a type of apartheid.
When the coalition came to power, they promised that those who perpetrated these crimes against our humanity would be prosecuted and jailed. They failed to bring any of them to justice. Even Roger Khan was able to return to Guyana and walk free. When the US was deporting him, they asked the ruling coalition if they intended to prosecute him. The response was that no charges would be brought against him.
We must ask ourselves why the coalition broke their promise to deliver justice. Is it because all of them have secrets for each other? Is it because all are involved in the murky web of oppression and deceit and betrayal of we the people that has led us to this tragic and yet inevitable place?
Our only hope is that there are Guyanese with the integrity and courage to stand up and say that enough is enough. Leaders who will call on the people to stop rioting, killing and dying for these political elites on both sides, who are using the people as pawns in their game to control and plunder the resources and wealth of this country. Both the PPP/C and the ruling coalition have used State power to enrich themselves, while the majority of Guyanese of all races continue to live in miserable poverty. Are we willing to fight and die for a continuation of our own oppression and exploitation? Let us use this historical opportunity to liberate ourselves from this absurd dialectic.
As a revolutionary Pan-African organisation, OVP can never promote race hate, despite the fact that folks on both side of the divide are doing just that and calling on us to do so. It is a division that is used to obscure the real struggle that confronts us and can only destroy us in the end.
Innocent people on both sides will get hurt. We have a moral duty to protect the youth of all races from the spread of fake news and rumours that are being used to manipulate them into a situation that will bring about riots, chaos and race war. It is poor youths who will die if such a situation eventuates, and believe me when I tell you that both parties will be willing to sacrifice poor youths in their insatiable lust for power and wealth.
There is nothing to be gained from riots and war and much to lose. The youths of this nation had this nonsense thrust upon them – they do not deserve to become the victims of this falsehood.
In the end, only consciousness, righteousness and the truth can set us free.
Yours faithfully,
Gerald A. Perreira
Leader
Organization for the Victory of the People (OVP)