Guyana’s 26-point drop on the global press freedom index was influenced by the current executive of the Guyana Press Association’s attempt to gain sympathy ahead of the body’s upcoming elections, according to Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo.
“I believe they are campaigning now because they have long overdue elections – the GPA,” Jagdeo, who is also the PPP general secretary, said on Thursday at a press conference when asked for a response to the GPA’s World Press Freedom Day message.
“It is long overdue. And now because of fears that there may be changes, the boogeyman is always the PPP. [This is] … to make some of the journalists feel that if they vote for a different person in there that they are part of some government plot. It is like trying to shame the journalists or the members of the press association into voting for the status quo. So, I believe that this is part of the campaign. The boogeyman PPP is trying to derail the press association; trying to take over an independent press association. So I am an independent press association, so vote for me. Don’t vote for anyone else. It is part of the campaigning,” he said.
Taking a direct aim at President of the GPA Nazima Raghubir, Jagdeo said she was partisan in her views and reports from the GPA influenced this country’s latest ranking on press freedom. “I would urge Nazima Raghubir not to use the PPP/C as her campaign. We have enough troubles otherwise. We don’t want to be part of your internal campaigning there,” he said.
“I think that the press association had this big hype, knowing that the report was coming out now and Guyana suddenly dropped 26 points on the report. They knew the report was coming out and I think it was an orchestrated attempt by some media practitioners …who are politically aligned to stir up issues that are non-issues knowing that it would influence the ranking…,” Jagdeo posited. “Reporters are getting killed around the world, and the countries don’t drop 26 points. But we dropped 26 points because the press association, again, sent something. And know that everything they sent was used by the international organisation.”
He said that the GPA’s World Press Freedom Day statement attacked the PPP/C in an effort to get sympathy from the international community and organisations.
The GPA’s statement warned of an attempt by the government to take it over or failing that, to establish a parallel body.
The statement said that this year’s World Press Freedom Day was being observed at a time when there appeared to be a “creeping intolerance” to media when answers are sought especially from the political directorates across Guyana’s major political divide. It stressed that this resort to defaming the character of journalists on a politically-aligned social media page or the expletive-laced response to a journalist are themselves a violation of Article 12 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that protects people against attacks upon their honour and reputation.
‘Control the narrative’
The association cited renewed efforts by the sitting government to use its leverage in the state media and its aligned privately-owned media to “violate the inalienable right to freedom of association” as enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Constitution of Guyana. It claimed that the government was “coercing” those workers to engage in practices that are “inimical to the Guyana Press Association at the altar of political expediency”. It noted too that there had been failed attempts in the past to do so through the partisan Union of Guyanese Journalists.
The GPA added that decades later, the current government has embarked on a two-pronged strategy of using its leverage and pressure on workers in the state media and sympathetic privately-owned media to take over the GPA. Should that strategy fail, then the government will form what can only be described as a parallel organisation.
In light of the aforementioned, the association sounded a warning that it is its “clear and unambiguous position” that “the government’s sole interest is to control the narrative of the reality of the Guyanese media landscape locally, regionally and internationally.” To counter this threat, the GPA said it was keeping its international partners and affiliates abreast of these efforts to “derail” the association, adding that such moves will be resisted. As part of its push back, GPA said it was seeking the solidarity of all “freedom-loving” Guyanese including civil society actors and international development stakeholders.
The release informed that journalists will soon have an opportunity to elect a new executive of the Guyana Press Association that will be free from partisan control. This, it reminded, ultimately depended on media workers going out to vote. And as far as the GPA is concerned, at the end of the day what matters is that “freedom of expression is a driver for all other human rights.”
‘Far cry’
Jagdeo said that to comment on the release could open the door for criticism and having his message distorted but he felt that the party needed to respond to what he believes are untruths.
“I know politicians should walk carefully around this issue because your comments could be distorted and then the distortion gets replicated and distorted. As the General Secretary of a party I have a duty to say that we are always supportive of freedom of the press. As a party, we have fought for this. We know what it was when the PNC had banned newsprint in this country. People had to smuggle newsprint into the country… because the Catholic Standard could not get paper. We know those days where we came from when there was only the state media, when journalists were killed or threatened to be killed. What we enjoy today is a far cry from the history under the PNC,” he said.
“So, as a political party that fought to change all of this… we have a vested interest in ensuring that we have a free, competitive media. We don’t censor people. We will respond. As I said before, we have a duty, if we believe that we are treated unfairly in the media, to point this out, but we will defend the right of the media to say it, even if it is misguided in our view. Except when it borders on criminality. What we have seen in a lot of the online stuff that calls themselves media… it is not really media, it is commentators like the (Rickford) Burkes and (Mark) Benchop. Benchop hides behind media, we won’t fight to defend that.”
Referencing a World Justice Project Report that he said states that 45 percent of the media in Guyana is corrupt, he said that nothing was made public from that report and it speaks to balanced reporting here.
However, he said, his party will always believe in press freedom. “Having said all of this, we believe in press freedom and will fight for press freedom. But people have to be fair also. To call yourself a journalist you have to be fair. If you are a politician posing as a journalist, then that is a different matter. And we have many of those,” he contended.
Tolerance
Western diplomats had also issued a statement on World Press Freedom Day and Jagdeo highlighted that they said that they believed reporting here was balanced. He has differing views, and he also chided them for encouraging that there not be selective interviews by government officials.
“But you don’t have balanced coverage. Take for example a Kaieteur News. Since when that is balanced coverage? …They said we must not be selective in who we give interviews to. Imagine the international community saying that! You ever seen President Biden on Fox News or Trump on CNN? Those are not the indicators of press freedom, it is about the tolerance of the government,” he said.
Jagdeo said that President Irfaan Ali is most tolerant of the press and fields questions on broad issues, while not in a formal setting at press conferences. “Questions that won’t be tolerated, take for example, in the White House. You think the questions that are asked of President Ali, you think you could ask President Biden those questions? And he will listen to all of them and answer? It is not so in other international jurisdictions. To get accredited to the White House [is a tedious process]. Here, practically anybody could come. To get into the White House, you have to go through a set of ropes,” he said.
“Press freedom in this country is secure and will be secure but that doesn’t mean we don’t know some of the people and what they are about,” he added.
