Give credit where it is due

Jun 23, 2010 Letters

Dear Editor,
You appeared to have missed a small but not insignificant event which occurred a week or two ago. There was a ceremony at Red House to launch a booklet entitled, “President Jagan Speaks on Environment and Development….. selected speeches 1992-1997”.
The booklet was compiled and edited by Navin Chandarpal and published by GAWU. Notably absent from the ceremony was Donald Ramotar, General Secretary of the PPP and self-regarded expert on Palestine and Palestinians.
He was out campaigning under the pretence of being a member of the Cabinet, no doubt at the State’s, and by extension, the taxpayers’ expense.
But notably present was the newly accredited Finnish Ambassador to Guyana who gave an unsolicited and impromptu reminiscence of his days at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), when Dr. Jagan was president of Guyana and of the visionary role that Dr. Jagan played in recognizing and advancing environmental issues for Guyana and the world at large.
Of particular importance was the instrumentality of Dr. Jagan in securing during his Presidency, the enactment of the Environmental Protection Act. But why was this event significant? Well it comes at a time when a certain (man) is being portrayed as a Champion of the Earth and his sycophants are busy defacing the landscape with tasteless and unsightly billboards to that effect.
The booklet is sending a subtle and subliminal message. It reminds us exactly who was there first and how the vision for Guyana had its genesis.
Due recognition is given by the editor to the pioneering contribution of President Hugh Desmond Hoyte who initiated the Iwokrama Rainforest Programme which according to Dr. Jagan, provides: “for the international community an open laboratory to investigate the ways in which our forests can be used to improve the living standards of our present generation while they remain available for future generations”
The compilation of speeches encompasses the period 1992-1997, a period when Dr. Champion’s silence on matters environmental resonated loudly and his sycophants only existed within confines of their rat holes.
In his speech to the Hemispheric Summit Conference on Sustainable Development held in Bolivia in December 1996, Dr. Jagan proposed that: “payments for services by poor countries can also be made to ensure global security.
This can be for environmental controls that statement demonstrates quite clearly when the idea of compensation to poor countries for environmental controls was first being advanced and by whom. Dr. Jagan’s New Global Human order advances the idea in greater detail’
In his earlier speech given at the dedication of the Iwokarama Rainforest Programme to the Indigenous People of the world on World Environmental Day (June 1993) Dr. Jagan had this to say: “the developing world which is geographically in possession of a sizable pad of the world’s resources can play a vital role in preserving our planet if it is given an even break and a new lease on life”
Dr. Jagan envisioned a world in which “poor nations with very small consumption of fossil fuels and other contributors to global warming and ozone depletion can play a major role in helping the earth fight back”
The seeds of environmental awareness and preservation and the role that they could play in the development of poor countries in partnership with the developed world were sown by President Hoyte. They were nurtured and further propagated by Dr. Jagan.
Now credit for the crop is being hijacked by a Johnny come lately with no vision of his own, who is desperately trying to salvage for himself a respectable legacy in what has been a tenure characterized by corruption and miserable, visionless failure.
He is what that classic song of the 1960’s describes as “The Great Pretender”.
The booklet brings us back to reality and serves as a timely reminder of exactly who was there first and whose vision it was. So, where are the billboards for Presidents Hoyte and Jagan?
Bibi K. Nandram

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