The president’s comments should be condemned

Mar 03, 2009 Features / Columnists, Peeping Tom

You know a government is panicking when it begins to imagine enemies where none exists. The PPP government is clearly now in deep distress over the crisis involving CLICO (Guyana) and is seeking to blame, of all sectors, the media in Guyana.
At Babu John on Sunday the media was described as the new opposition in Guyana. This is an unfounded and unwarranted allegation which represents yet another assault on the media.
The broadsides did not end there. Derogatory statements were made about some media practitioners who were accused of not reporting the news accurately and for distorting the news to make the government look bad.
No reference was made to those who polish the news to make the government look good. The latter is certainly not going to be labeled opposition, even though one may be tempted to accuse them of waxing propaganda to make the ruling regime look favourable.
I believe that all media houses in the print media should now come together and express serious concerns about the attitude that the government, and particularly the President of Guyana, is adopting towards the media in Guyana. They should also condemn the subtle innuendos which have been leveled against a columnist of this newspaper, Freddie Kissoon, at the last press conference of the President.
Surely if the only sin that some reporters have committed was their inaccurate reporting and their tendency to distort, this could have easily been corrected by full disclosure from the government. Surely with the millions that are spent each year to float GINA and NCN, these inaccuracies and distortions could have been quickly remedied.
By no stretch of the imagination should some reporters be described as the opposition. And surely this newspaper cannot be justly accused of acting irresponsibly in relation to the crisis which many policyholders now face in relation to CLICO (Guyana). And I have seen nothing so far in the Stabroek News which can be deemed as reckless and irresponsible.
I do not read the Guyana Times and therefore I cannot comment on whether that newspaper did anything irresponsible, but I doubt whether it would given its orientation.
I have read about one television newscast carrying a report which was erroneous and I have seen an apology from the television station scrolling across the screen.
One blog site went overboard and has since disappeared off the radar. But apart from that I believe that the media in general has tried their best to get information at its disposal out to the public.
The President’s comments about the new opposition is therefore disturbing and deserves to be condemned by the Guyana Press Association who should also bring this matter to the attention of the international community because when a government committed to a free press can make such outrageous comments, then we are perhaps entering a new phase in our political culture.
The President’s outbursts in Berbice are typical of what we have to come to expect of his pilgrimage to the grave of Dr. Cheddi Jagan. The only thing that perhaps caused the outbursts not to be dishonouring of Cheddi was the fact that such statements would have equally been characteristic of Cheddi himself, who often did not have the best of relations with the media.
But I would say this without fear of contradiction that if you take out the actions of certain talk show hosts, Cheddi had a rougher time with the media but he still has a far better record in terms of his relation with the media than the incumbent President.
Babu John has often allowed the PPP to present excuses to their supporters for their poor performance by painting conspiracy theories. A few years ago when it was the crime wave we were told that if the PNC got in to power they would give weapons out to the criminals.
The opposition was made the scapegoat for the failure of the government then to deal with the security crisis.
We now are in the midst of a serious development concerning CLICO (Guyana) and true to form, the supporters of the PPP are being fed another conspiracy theory. This time it is the media which is out to destabilize the government; it is some journalists who are the new opposition.
Guyanese should not allow themselves to be diverted. The government and the Board of Directors of CLICO (Guyana) have questions to answer to the Guyanese people concerning this fiasco which has developed. The Guyanese people need answers not smokescreens.

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