Questions for Caribbean Police Commissioners

May 15, 2009 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

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The Caribbean Police Commissioners wrap up their one week conference today so I thought I may ask them to respond to some questions I have about democracy in their respective countries. My interest lies in particular with the Anglo-phone Caribbean. When you make a comparison with Guyana and the rest of the English-speaking West Indies, Guyana appears as a politically hopeless place.
Against this interpretation of mine of my own country, I would indeed be interested in knowing how the rest of the independent British West Indies islands structure their political practice and constitutional institutions in comparison to Guyana’s.
We have a President who loves to go around the world criticizing the practice of democracy in the Western world while he is hardly in a position to lecture to anyone about the meaning of that word.
Here are some of my questions to the Caribbean Police Commissioners. Are you familiar with the phrase, “Paramountcy of the Party?” This is a concept that originated from within the ideologies of fascism and communism. Its theoretical/political derivatives go back to the 19th century search for social perfection in the face of Europe’s inability to bring stability and prosperity to its people.
Fascist and communist theoreticians postulated that Europe needed a strong leader backed by a messianic party that embodied the will of the people; will in the Hegelian sense of the term. Fascism and communism borrowed heavily from the philosophy of Plato, Nietzsche and Hegel though all three thinkers would have been appalled at the macabre usage of their philosophies by fascist and communist countries in Europe.
The doctrine of the paramountcy of the party stipulated that the vanguard party and its leader are coterminous with the State. The party is synonymous with the State, and in many instances, constitutes a value that is more important to the preservation of the social fabric of the “fatherland/motherland than the State.
The Caribbean Police Commissioners may be aware that in Guyana under President Forbes Burnham, this European concept was fully implemented. It is still alive in Guyana and can be seen on the face of many state institutions. It was in Guyana that the concept of the neutral civil servant taken from the British tradition was destroyed. First, by Premier Cheddi Jagan in the sixties, then by President Burnham.
Sorry for such a long digression before the first question. Do you have in Trinidad, Jamaica and Barbados a situation whereby the civil service head of a Ministry –the Permanent Secretary- can belong to the leadership of a political party, whether ruling or in the opposition?
In Guyana, three PSs are in the Central Committee of the ruling party? I am told other Caribbean societies would never allow such a governmental caricature; needless to say I believe those who told me so. Actually, I can point to a peculiarity where a man sits in an office in the southern section of Georgetown and does a certain type of work exclusively for the ruling party but is on the payroll of a certain Ministry.
I have dealt with this nasty manifestation of paramountcy of the party three times before in these columns. How would the opposition in other Caricom countries react to this?
I once asked a high-level administrator from the University of the West Indies if the Jamaican, Trinidadian and Barbadian Prime Ministers would allow the UWI Vice-Chancellor to be a party candidate in the national elections. When I saw the expression on his face, I knew the answer.
In Guyana, the Vice-Chancellor of the nation’s only university was an election candidate in the 2001 and 2006 national elections. Can the Police Commissioners say how this would go down in their respective countries?
Would Caribbean people demand the resignation of the Prime Minister if his wife calls a press conference and claims that she was the victim of domestic abuse? Such a charge has been made against President Jagdeo. It needs to be pointed out that many of the accusations of the former First Lady (they were not legally married) have not been proven as yet and the President has chosen not to reply to her claims.
Has there been an incident in the Caricom islands where the Home Affairs Minister has been accused by the opposition of being involved in extra-judicial killings and had his Canadian and American visas revoked as happened in Guyana? Has there been a situation in any Caricom nation where the International Trade Minister had been denied an American visa while he held that portfolio, as occurred in this country?
What are your answers, gentlemen?

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