Though he has drawn broad condemnation for remarks that appeared to seek a military-led uprising against the government, Opposition Leader, Aubrey Norton yesterday said that executive member of the Working People’s Alliance (WPA), Tacuma Ogunseye’s right to free speech must be respected.
Ogunseye made several claims during a WPA meeting in Buxton on March 9th and urged persons of African descent to be “battle ready.” At the location, he stated that his party along with the opposition will receive support from the Disciplined Services who “carry weapons because to me the institutions” are made up of mostly Afro-Guyanese.
Norton yesterday told a press conference that he was present at the location since he was invited by the WPA to speak at the public meeting. Touching directly on Ogunseye’s remarks, Norton said, “the Opposi-tion believes that Mr. Tacuma Ogunseye’s right to free speech must be respected even though we believe that his language could have been better chosen. The choice of his language is his preserve.”
He then stated that Ogunseye “accurately described the situation and probably out of frustration he went a little too far.”
According to Norton, any attempt to “use the law against” Ogunseye will further “erode the guard-rails of democracy and add to the continued violation of the rule of law by the PPP regime.”
He said that “the police must not continue to be misused against the PPP’s political opponents. There is a legitimate expectation that the police should investigate Bharrat Jagdeo for his alleged involvement in fraud and corruption as disclosed in the VICE News documentary. The nation awaits the police’s action on this matter of critical importance to the people of Guyana.”
According to Norton, he expects that the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) will take a professional approach to the matter as he is hopeful that external forces including the political party and President Irfaan Ali will not influence the army.
Stressing that he believes that the head of the army, Brigadier Godfrey Bess should not have commented on the matter, Norton said, that the GDF needs to continue to be professional, however, “we must not fool ourselves. The average man in the Guyana Defence Force feels the pinch of the cost of living, the average man in the Guyana Defence Force, the African Guya-nese in the Guyana Defence Force feels the racism, he might not have on his uniform and he’s in his community and he will feel and face the racism, so one has to draw a distinction between the army operating as an institution as well as noting that there are many individuals in the army who will share our positions but because of their role as professionals they wouldn’t comment.”
Norton then said that members of the GDF often meet him and tell him that they are dissatisfied with the Guyana Police Force which is being “destroyed and used politically.”
He added that the government seems bent on using this opportunity to increase their repression rather than to recognize the problems in society and seek to solve them. “We believe that good sense should prevail and the government should grasp the opportunity to address the problems raised by Mr Ogunseye. The government buries its head in the sand to its own detriment. Attacking Mr Ogunseye and the Opposition will not solve the problem.”
President Irfaan Ali in a live video address strongly condemned the statements and said that they were made with the intention of promoting “hate, terrorism and racism” in the country and called on Guyanese to condemn such actions.
The president questioned the capability of the party and the opposition since he said that they are involving “respectable” and “disciplined” persons of the force to destroy the country’s “democracy.”
Ali had said, “…they seek to urge respectable disciplined men and women in uniform to be part of a system that destroys democracy, they know nothing about unity and bringing our country together. I want every Guyanese to listen to this tape, to listen to the content of what came off of that stage…and to ask themselves a very simple question, ‘are these leaders?’”
He further sought to question various institutions and the villagers of Buxton about their acceptance of the WPA statements.
“To the private sector ask yourself these simple questions, ‘can these people who share that stage have the interest of Guyana at heart?’, to the religious community in the consciousness of religion and in your own conscience as religious leaders, ‘do you accept this?’, to some of the civil society who would ignore this because it does not suit their agenda too, ‘where are your voices now?’”
However, Norton, yesterday said that the government’s call to civil society for condemnation was hypocritical “since it was the same PPP through its Second Vice President (Jagdeo) that condemned civil society contending that they were not voted for and therefore have no right to petition the government. We reaffirm our commitment to and support for civil society.”
He added that before commenting on any matter he has the tendency to feel out his constituency and on the Ogunseye matter “a lot of people in our constituency believe that while the language was not the best he correctly described the situation they find themselves in.”
Additionally, Norton said his comments on the matter would not send mixed signals but rather it sends a clear signal “that we acknowledge that there is widespread racism that our people are not getting contracts, etc, and to that extent, we agree that Ogunseye reflected the Guyana situation accurately, albeit the choice of language could have been different.”
Ogunseye, while at the WPA meeting on March 9th made several claims about the People’s Progressive Party Civic (PPP/C) using the Guyana Police Force and the Guyana Defence Force in the past to “execute” Africans and encouraged his ethnic group, especially those who are members of the Joint Services, to be “battle ready” for a “fight.”
During the meeting which was recorded and shared on the Facebook profile of KAMS TV, the party member could be heard referring to his version of events in Buxton, 2002, “…In 2002, 2005, when Buxton got interrupted into an unfortunate situation which arose because of the PPP policy of executing Africans using the police force and then the phantom force and Buxton find itself in the cross road.”
He went on to contend that the treatment that persons of African descent receive in this country is unjust and called it a “political urgency” which he declared must be acted upon as early as possible. “We in the Working People’s Alliance have decided once again to put the party on the line because we believe that with the present situation in our country… the treatment and conditions of the African community requires political urgency and we have to act and we have to act quickly… for the WPA in this present campaign we have some clear objectives, the first objective is to get the African team in a state of battle readiness… the Afro-Guyanese police and soldiers… would stand with Afro-Guyanese in resisting mainly Indo-Guyanese supporting the PPP/C.”
The WPA executive member said he was of the belief that once persons from the Joint Services who are of his ethnic group are guided to do “the right thing,” then there is a possibility of his party getting back into government. “…Sometimes people tell me that to remove the PPP will be hard and long but I don’t necessarily believe… because at the end of the day no government could survive if they don’t have the support of the military and those who carry weapons for the state… the reality is, the army, the police, are majority African Guyanese… once we organise our people and once we begin to fight we will ensure that our brothers and sisters in uniform will do the right thing and when they do the right thing this matter is over in days and not weeks… it have to be strategic.”
