Conversation Tree

TUNNEL VISION

I am not a practitioner of ethnic politics and will not be ensnared into that dead end. Lincoln Lewis or anyone else is free to promote and defend ethnic rights and engage in ethnic politics. But I believe that the solution to Guyana’s ethno-political problems requires a policy that supersedes ethnic fundamentalism. While an active member of two political parties, my personal flagship issue was shared governance, to which I was converted in 1977. It offers a political solution to the enduring problem in Guyana of ethno-political dominance. A political solution in Guyana is the only foundation on which ethnic rights and interests can be successfully addressed.

QUEEN ELIZABETH II

The death of Queen Elizabeth II brings to an end the longest ‘reign’ of a monarch in British history. A revered symbol of service, dedication, stability and endurance to Britain and the Commonwealth, her passing marks the end of an era that spanned the abdication of King Edward VIII in 1936, within her childhood memory, to the celebration of her Platinum Jubilee marking 70 years as Queen. Not yet Queen, she experienced the Second World War and the independence of India, after the Churchill’s deliberate starvation of three million Bengali Indians, the Cold War inspired anti-colonial wars in Malaya, Kenya and other colonies and later British support for US interventions in Vietnam, Grenada, Iraq and elsewhere, the colonial war against Argentina in 1982, the xenophobic rejection Britain post-colonial future as part of Europe and the threat of Scotland’s departure. She endured the scandals created by Charles and Andrew. Elizabeth became Queen in 1952 and Guyana’s constitution was suspended in 1953. Some of the PPP’s leaders, including my father, were imprisoned. Subsequent neocolonial strategies brought about reconciliation with Kenyatta and other militant leaders, but not with Cheddi Jagan and the PPP, at the US’s insistence.

HAS THE PNCR/APNU NOW TRANSITIONED TO A FULLY FLEDGED ETHNIC PARTY?

Has the PNCR/APNU now transitioned to a fully fledged ethnic party prone to violence and threats of violence? It seems so, notwithstanding that Indian Guyanese and of other ethnicities are in its leadership.

‘RESISTING THE EMERGING APARTHEID STATE IN GUYANA’

The conference, “Resisting the emerging apartheid state of Guyana,” scheduled for last Sunday, was postponed. Many Guyanese were thereby deprived of the evidence on which Cuffy 250, the organisers of the conference, intended to rely to prove the existence of emerging apartheid in Guyana, whether it began to surface in 1992, or only from 2020. If proved, this crime against humanity, perpetrated by the Government in favour of Indian Guyanese, rich and poor, would somehow have been lurking behind an elaborate façade of constitutional rights and civil liberties for all Guyanese.

THERE IS NO OBSTACLE TO APPOINTING A CHANCELLOR AND CHIEF JUSTICE

The judiciary, along with the executive and legislature, is one of the three constitutional pillars of the state. But the two most important positions in the judiciary, the Chancellor and Chief Justice, have been held under acting appointments for approximately two decades. The last confirmed Chief Justice was Desiree Bernard from 1996 to 2001 and last confirmed Chancellor was the said Desiree Bernard from 2001 to 2005.