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President Jagdeo lost the game before it began
Guyana has signed the EPA. The inevitability was known to all of us – we had to sign or face economic strangulation. President Jagdeo lost his battle to stop the signing until the package was re-examined and rearranged by the Caricom countries.
Why was President Jagdeo’s case so nonchalantly rejected? The Caricom Heads met and didn’t even meet the Guyanese Head of State half way. They forcefully and inflexibly rejected the requested reexamination of the EPA
It was a battle and a war that Mr. Jagdeo lost. How he interprets his loss will decide the future of his style of rule. It can galvanise him to democratise or it can force him to become more recalcitrant. This is a hard country to successfully administer. But Guyana can be managed once the rulers understand both the recurring and endemic problems. Once these nuances are studied then Guyana can move forward with a new approach to power and political culture.
The PPP and Mr. Jagdeo have to understand that in no complicated state like Guyana, Trinidad, Belgium, the US, India, Brazil can the seat of power implement successfully all the policies it invents without making concessions, compromises and overtures to constituencies, classes and actors that have their own demands.
I will argue in this essay that Mr. Jagdeo lost his EPA battle, not because of the man, Jagdeo; not because Guyana was appearing as if it was the radical guy; not because Guyana was asking for too much; and certainly not because the negotiators were against going back to the drawing table. The Caricom countries didn’t listen to Guyana’s case because of how they see Guyana.
Mr. Jagdeo and Freedom House will instantly reject the premise of this argument here. They will not and never accept that a substantial percentage of viewers in and out of Guyana think that this country has authoritarian leadership and that scandals and nasty things are the order of the day.
If Owen Arthur was in power and had protested the signing of the EPA, he would have had his colleagues making concessions to him. If PJ Patterson had come out against the signing of the EPA, Caricom Heads would have listened to him. Although Golding and Thompson are new Prime Ministers if they had rattled about the unfairness of the EPA, its signing would have been delayed.
Once Patrick Manning had said he wasn’t signing, other Caricom Heads would have tried to see if they could have reached a compromise with him. Guyana was flippantly dismissed because it was viewed by the core of Caricom leadership as an undemocratic state within the integration movement that damages the image and credibility of the region.
When Mr. Golding lashed out at Guyana as a panhandler (he didn’t name Guyana; I believe he had only one country in mind and that was Guyana), there were Freudian overtones in his mind. It is as if this thing was buried in his mind and he wanted to get it out.
He wanted to hit out against Guyana for what it is- a country where all kinds of wrong things happen. Do President Jagdeo and Freedom House believe that Caricom people do not know what takes place here? They do. Just as Guyanese commentators, academics, civil servants, business leaders and political leaders are aware of the things that happen in Barbados, Trinidad and the other islands, Caricom citizens know that we have immense political problems over here.
Do President Jagdeo and Freedom House believe that Caricom citizens do not know that drug barons operate in Guyana and they are never caught by the local security forces? Do you think Caricom Heads do not know that the PPP Government will not allow private radio stations?
Don’t you think they are not aware that the Guyana Government does not want a Freedom of Information Act? Don’t you think they do not get information that the PPP Government is practicing constituency politics? In Barbados, there is a sizeable percentage of political observers that believe there is a policy of discrimination by the Government of Guyana.
Don’t you think they do not know that the PPP has replaced the PNC and the PPP is practising the same style of government as the very PNC that Cheddi Jagan and his protégés fought against?
President Jagdeo lost his EPA epic long before it even started. Caricom leaders were not impressed with Mr. Jagdeo and his government in Georgetown. They found it insulting that such a government unpopular with its people could tell other Caricom leaders what to do.
Finally, Mr. Golding must have said to himself; “Why don’t that guy, Jagdeo, debate his critics in front of the Guyanese nation?”
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