The Constitution does not discriminate between Guyanese living at home or abroad

Feb 16, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
I refer to the article written by Freddie Kissoon, (February 14, 2010) captioned: Giving permanent foreign Guyanese the right to vote is morally horrible.
In his article, Mr. Kissoon seems to have total contempt for Guyanese living abroad, perhaps even envious of the money we earn and the education we give our children is apparently totally ignorant of the immense contribution we make to the Guyana economy.
Please therefore, allow me to respond to this quote from his article: “Why should hundreds of thousands of persons outside of this country (I don’t care if they are Guyana-born or Caribbean citizens) who have not blessed this country with a cent towards UG’s restoration, school rehabilitation, hospital reconstruction, road repair, agricultural development, decide who become our lawmakers?
“It gets indecent when you think that many, many of these permanently based overseas Guyanese have not been back to this country in decades, have no interest in returning, have no willingness to contribute financially to the development of this territory and would never send their children to school here, but have the right to determine who rule us in this land.
“It gets even more indecent when you think that some of these people hold down fantastic jobs paying fantastic salaries, their children attend top class high schools and highly rated universities, receive the best medical attention the world can offer and engage in cruise ship holidays and they have the right to pick the people who will govern this country.”
Whether or not voting rights are given to Guyanese living abroad is a decision that will be made by the Guyana Government, hopefully, in consultation with the opposition parties. But the Guyana Constitution does not discriminate between Guyanese living at home or abroad.
And although we may not have directly contributed to the specific programmes he mentioned – for those are the responsibility of Government, let me make it emphatically clear to Mr. Kissoon: Most Guyanese living abroad are patriots who make a meaningful contribution to the economy.
We send money, barrels of food and clothing, computers, car parts, equipment and appliances just to name a few.
And yes, Guyanese are always returning home for Christmas, Mashramani, Easter, Cricket and funerals, with bulging suitcases and thousands of US dollars to spend.
Guyanese return home for vacations despite the high crime rate because we prefer to spend our money there rather than having a care-free vacation elsewhere.
We came to your rescue during the Floods of 2005 when the Government was crippled and our brothers and sisters were in despair, so don’t knock us.
Mr. Kissoon should be proud of his countrymen earning “fantastic salaries” in New York and other places, for this is precisely why we can afford to help our relatives back home.
More and more overseas Guyanese are investing in Guyana, and are getting involved with projects that are helping our youth, such as the Irene Madray’s Recreational Arts & Resource Centre at Cane Grove, and the computer training centre at Cove & John.
Perhaps Mr. Kissoon should talk to some of the beneficiaries of these projects, or some of the 40-50 under privileged children that I gave a wonderful Christmas party to, or the many others that constantly benefit from the generosity of Guyanese living abroad, before making those erroneous statements about us. And for what it’s worth, most Guyanese living overseas are disgusted with the petty politics that are ruining our country, and with the knowledge and experience we now have from living in highly developed countries, we are more politically astute than most Guyanese who tend to vote race, time and time again.
We see the forest, not only the trees, and more of us are longing to see a colour-blind government representing all the people of Guyana.
A government that is transparent and fiscally responsible, and a government that will not intervene with a decision made by the Guyana Medical Council to discipline one of its own, found guilty of Professional Misconduct.
So you see Mr. Kissoon, if ‘permanent foreign Guyanese’ (as you call us) are allowed to vote in elections in Guyana, this may not be such a bad thing for our country.
Harry Gill

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