Dear Editor,
The Covid19 vaccination process should be done by way of informed consent not by way of the rabid anti-working-class tactic of criminalizing model working class Guyanese Citizens by the People’s Progressive Party (PPP Government). Dismissing workers, sending home workers without pay. It is only the GTU General Secretary, Coretta McDonald who has stood up against these tyrannical impositions that take the food off of the tables of many families while it restricts and contains our freedom of movement. Next it will be mandatory for pensioners to produce vaccination passbooks to get their pension. On the other hand, the maximum leaders of the PPP continue to shield themselves behind Article 80 of the Guyana Constitution, immune from prosecution stemming from charges brought against them before and in office. Simply put, most people do not trust the PPP. Long before the party “set foot” in office on August 2nd 2020, they had known:
1) That the party had not the expertise nor the administrative ability to govern Guyana singlehandedly.
2) That it had not the political will to stand up in defense of Guyana’s sovereignty and had given away our Kaieteur and Canje Blocks in the past and now once again in office, they are paying ExxonMobil and the other oil consortiums to exploit our oil resources.
3) They had known that they had not the capacity to deal with the Covid19 Pandemic singlehandedly and if they had any interest in the welfare of the Guyanese nation they would have created a broad-based taskforce made up of a wide cross-section of trustworthy Guyanese out of Civil Society, the Churches, Trade Unions, NGOs, Communities and Opposition parties, etc. If they had done so, there would not have been the willful loss of hundreds of lives, and, transparency and accountability in procurement of Covid19 vaccines.
But the PPP took advantage of the situation and sought to delude the Guyanese nation, skillfully manipulated its support base, divided the population, and with the Private Sector politicized, in the oil/gas era showed its true colors. They used Covid19 as a smokescreen to cover-up their intention of creating the Gas-to-Shore project and many others to ensure that Guyanese don’t benefit in a way that would bring this poverty-stricken nation out of poverty leaving them faced with increasing pressure from a wide cross-section of Guyanese at home and abroad to renegotiate the oil contract with the oil companies so that Guyanese can benefit. The daily reports in the two major newspapers, the Kaieteur News (KN), and the Stabroek News (SN), speaks of the secrecy, confidentiality and skullduggery between the Guyana Government, ExxonMobil and its partners; the inevitable oil spills and environmental impact and Guyana having no insurance coverage has caused the PPP to crack up and to return to its old destructive dictatorial ways.
It is now left to be seen whether the ABC+E Countries that vigilantly stood by Guyana’s side to ensure the preservation of our Electoral Democracy, are now going to move to enforce sanctions on the delinquent PPP Government that is derailing our fragile democracy. After one year the PPP has refused and continue to deny Guyanese of Civil Society our Constitutional Right to an Inclusive Governance and to be part of the Covid19 Taskforce, to interface with Guyanese communities and address people’s concerns, with who are eligible to be vaccinated. Vaccination should be based on informed consent rather than the PPP resort to brute force and ignorance, draconian legislations and the use of the repressive state apparatus to consolidate its dictatorship under the smokescreen of Covid19 Regulations and Measures.
Sincerely,
Desmond Alli
General Secretary Guyana United
Artists GUA
