Following its attendance at a high-level meeting in Geneva, Switzerland on people of African Descent, IDPADA-G has restated a call for a meeting with President Irfaan Ali even as it was accused by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of making erroneous statements at the forum.
The International Decade for People of African Descent-Guyana (IDPADA-G) attended the Geneva meeting from December 5 to 8 at which it made a series of claims about discrimination against Afro-Guyanese and also complained about the recent cutoff of its subvention by the government. The IDPADA was declared by the UN General Assembly in 2013 and the decade is being observed from 2015 to 2024.
In a statement on Sunday, IDPADA-G said that the forum offered a healthy and healing opportunity to address the longstanding and painful issues confronting persons of African Descent world-wide. It criticised the Guyana Government for not attending the forum, a matter which was not addressed by the ministry in a statement it had issued on December 16.