Dear Editor,
The Guyana United Artists categorically condemns the use of the right to peaceful protest to rob, loot, and beat innocent civilians and the willful destruction of property. There were many incidents of police shootings of civilians but it has never degenerated into what we have witnessed recently on the East coast. Given the double standards of Guyanese Society, we are not going to see that what transpired was a sociological spin-off of the decades of the negative political culture nurtured by the PNC and PPP that has produced hatred and contempt between the major ethnic groups. The politicians who were in complicity with the CIA that resulted in the murder of well over 1700 Guyanese were never brought to trial and of the brutal murders that took place during 2002-2014.
As a nation, we are conditioned to live with state-sponsored violence which has political implications. The most recent being the Cotton Tree murders, which for four days sent shock waves throughout the entire country, in which innocent Guyanese of Indian descent were beaten and robbed. The murders were not of political origin, rather it came 34 days after the PPP took office and it bore the features of post-election violence, prevalent in Guyanese electoral history given the sensitivity of race and the experience of the past. The PPP did not change its approach to Guyana’s politics, the notion of race/class and loyalty to the party is the political yardstick whereby a small group is rewarded as in the distribution of flood reliefs and the giveaway of GUYD$1 Million each to 30 persons under what has been referred to as a Cultural and Business Award is scandalously and corrupt as if we aren’t all Guyanese and have a right to benefit from the wealth generated from our mineral resources extraction, oil/gas blocks.
The underlying factor that 215,000 Guyanese who voted for the APNU+AFC are sidelined is going to have steep repercussions because people are not going to sit back and see their families suffer while the PPP is enjoying themselves and can be seen dancing on Social Media. By their own actions, overcome by greed and corruption, their display of arrogance, disrespect, and contempt for Guyanese is going to backfire, turning the table unfavourably upon themselves.
Sincerely,
Desmond Alli
General Secretary
Guyana United artists (GUA)