Latest update December 19th, 2024 3:22 AM
GTUC aims to ‘reverse decline into failed state’
Norris Witter
Acting General Secretary of the Guyana Trades Union Congress (GTUC) Norris Witter yesterday announced the union’s plans to confront the Government of Guyana in a bid to reverse what it calls the decline of Guyana into a failed state.
Witter informed media operatives that in keeping with the mandate given to the GTUC at the May Day rally held on the lawns of the Critchlow Labour College compound, the union will from next week be conducting a series of activities to address the Government’s violation of the human, civil and trade union rights of citizens.
He stated that next week’s activity will begin with a picketing exercise to be held at a venue to be announced in due course which will also be followed by other enhanced activities, incrementally.
He announced, too, that the GTUC at an emergency meeting held yesterday approved industrial and other forms of civil action in furtherance of its objectives, calling on union members who are not affiliates of the GTUC to join its activities.
Witter also pointed out that GTUC affiliates will be on ‘go slow’ at their place of work and encouraged the members of the work force to join with what he called the beginning of a long struggle.
In seeking to outline the reason for the union’s position he said that the GTUC views with grave concern the rapid deterioration of Guyana into “a state of backwardness and ridiculous lawlessness”.
According to Witter, recent reports in the print, electronic and broadcast media suggest that Guyana is either a failed state or one that is moving rapidly towards that status, unless the GTUC in conjunction with other progressive organisations and decent citizens intervene, without further delay, to arrest and reverse the decline.
He stated that the robbery and murder of Dweive Kant Ramdass allegedly by coast guard ranks must be one of the saddest days in Guyana’s history.
“Such dastardly act must force us to reflect, less me forget the pass and stand condemned to repeat it.”
He also pointed to the death of Mohamed Shafeek, a fish vendor arrested for loitering, and later found dead in the Brickdam lockup in 2000. The disappearance of “Mr. Wills who was last seen alive in police custody during the first quarter of 1999…The killings of Azad Bacchus, Shazad Bacchus and Fazil Ally by the Berbice Anti-Smuggling Squad (BASS) in 2001, the brutal slaying of mentally ill Ryan Kingston in 2003, the extra- judicial killings of over two hundred persons, the alleged torture of citizens and civilian workers of the Guyana Defence Force by members of the joint services, whose motto is to serve and protect.”
According to Witter, it is the state consorting with rogue elements of the joint services and unsavory characters in the society that has, in the opinion of the GTUC, “conspired to bring us to our present state of decay.”
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