Several letters from Leader of the Opposition Joseph Harmon to Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Chair Keith Rowley have gone unacknowledged, including a letter sent last week asking that the regional body mediate the current stalemate between the Irfaan Ali government and Guyana’s main parliamentary opposition APNU+AFC.
“There were two or three letters I would’ve written before and I’ve not received even an acknowledgement from the Chair or the Secretary General. I don’t know if the bureaucratic arrangements in their offices are not sufficient enough to receive and acknowledge a letter,” Harmon told Stabroek News yesterday.
He added that he will in due time follow the letters with phone calls to the individuals in question. Stabroek News has been able to confirm that Secretary General Irwin La Rocque’s office has received the correspondence copied to him but has been unable to confirm whether Rowley has received the letters sent.
Harmon on March 18 wrote CARICOM Chair-man and Prime Minister of Trinidad and Tobago Dr Keith Rowley and cited a recommendation of the CARICOM Elections Observation Report, which he quotes as saying that when a government of Guyana is formed, the CARICOM Secretariat should find some way to mediate the issue between the two main political parties to start the healing process of the country and to start the closing of the ethnic divide.
“I support, this recommendation and against this background, I urge that the CARICOM mechanism, under your leadership, sees the urgent need for decisive action,” Harmon wrote in the letter.
Noting that he has written a number of letters to CARICOM since August 2, Harmon lamented Ali’s adamant refusal to meet with the main opposition. “Intransigence and a refusal to engage on the part of the PPP government is not contributing to the healing process and is in fact widening the ethnic divide,” he wrote.
He argued that Ali’s position that he will not engage with the parliamentary opposition until his government is publicly recognised by “the Leader of the Opposition and the supporters of APNU+AFC is, without question, inflammatory, unacceptable, undemocratic and a cop out.”
“It is also the antithesis of the spirit of inclusive and consultative leadership…I have indicated, at all times, my willingness to meet and have publicly stated so,” he concluded.
Harmon, who during the prolonged 2020 elections crisis was wildly disparaging of the involvement of the regional and international community in Guyana’s governance, has reversed his position since being installed as Opposition Leader.
Asked yesterday if he believes his posturing during the elections period has affected the response he now recieves from the regional body, he said no.
“This is about post-election. This is about governance. We are talking about the state of the country and the responsibility of CARICOM based on its own report. A report the Secretary General advanced. I thought that would’ve been a clear enough call to action for the CARICOM mechanism,” he explained.
It remains unclear which mechanism the opposition leader wishes to see operationalised since CARICOM like other multilateral organisations does not become invovled in the internal politics of members states unless invited by a sitting government or compelled by extenuating circumstances.
