Who’s in charge of the GPF?

Aug 01, 2010 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to your article of Friday 30th July on Pages3 and 11 concerning a police woman who refused to be obstructed in the performance of her duties by not taking a cell phone call from a high judicial functionary when she was investigating an incident.
This police woman has been condemned and denigrated by the Commissioner of Police without a hearing in a tendentious attempt to defend the indefensible behaviour of the high judicial functionary.
The report raises many unanswered questions which the public ought to know and not be left to guess or surmise who is the high judicial functionary? Was that person a High Court Judge, the Chief Justice or even the Chancellor himself? It is not fair to any of these functionaries to be condemned unjustly.
Was the police woman taken to this deified judicial functionary by a high ranking police officer of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and if so on whose instructions and for what purpose? If so the public has a right to know who was that police officer and on what authority or law he acted? Does the Commissioner of Police agree that the ranking police officer had no authority to initiate and conduct the procedure to take the police woman to the high judicial functionary? Was the police woman’s liberty not unlawfully restrained by the police officer during the time she was taken to this deified functionary until she left his presence?
Even more bothersome, the public should know who initiated the request for the police woman to be taken to the high judicial functionary. Was it on the functionary’s request or instruction?
Who is in charge of the police? The public should demand an independent enquiry or at least one from the Police Complaints Authority into the foregoing matter which goes to the core values of the Guyana Police Force.
Concerned Member of the Police Watch
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To state the AFC does not have the country’s interest at heart is total nonsense

Dear Editor,
Though not wanting to go into details of the AFC’s decision to rule out an electoral alliance with the PNC, Mr. Corbin, its leader has seen it fit to take a jab by opining that such a decision is “shortsighted”. Moreover, he insinuates that it was not a decision which identifies with the desires of the people.
This is the same PNC leader who when the AFC was formed sarcastically announced that he is “underwhelmed by this new formation” and literally laughed it off.
There was no doubt that Corbin was ad idem with Donald Ramotar who at the time said it was a “wishy washy” party.
I want to say that Corbin is entitled to his opinion. But I am entitled to mine in the same breath. His comment is both unfortunate and rude. But then this is not unexpected from a maximalist leader. If he only knows what the desires of his membership is – and the people at large in Guyana – about his leadership of the PNC, the words shortsighted and longsighted would not be applicable. I will not proceed to describe what I think, because it may not do well for the good relations we otherwise have.
I just wish to re-emphasise that the democratic process of the AFC’s National Executive, along with the very many arguments and considerations objectively and subjectively deliberated on, took into account the desires of the people.
Our Executive members who supported this decision did not simply come there with their personal views and abandoned the representativeness they were to bring from the Regions and constituents they represent.
There must be more respect for the product of such a process.
Why is this party which underwhelmed him some years ago evidently now is overwhelming him? It should be mentioned that an argument supportive of the decision was that an association with the PNC will only give Corbin a shot in the arm, a potency dose, to rejuvenate him. “Why should we do that” was the question asked of that member.
The AFC is a party which looks ahead and appreciates that all manner of comments and opinions will come its way, some to destroy it and others to help guide it along. We in the National Executive will be able to discern between the two.
To denigrate us that the AFC does not have the country’s interest at heart is total nonsense. This is what guides us…if not all, then a majority of us. We will not always get it right. But respect our democratic process. Please!
Khemraj Ramjattan
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Social construction and reconstruction of ethnic conflict

Dear Editor,
For some time now, I concluded the following on race and ethnic relations:
• Guyana seemingly has no dominant ethnic group.
• Guyana has ethnic alliances.
• Guyana’s major ethnic groups ostensibly have comparable Socioeconomic Status (SES), indicators being education, occupation, and income.
• Guyana’s cultural mosaicnclines toward pluralism.
• Guyana’s fringe politicians and parts of the private media construct and reconstruct ethnic conflict, assisting them to manipulate the race card.
• Guyana has class-race-ethnicity simultaneously lived-in where each person belongs to a class, a race, and an ethnic group.
• Guyana has class divisions within each ethnic group as well as in the society at large – intra and inter-ethnic class structure.
And the ruling People’s Progressive Party/Civic (PPP/C) has a useful track record since 1953 of advancing equality before the law for all persons, regardless of their race, ethnicity, class, colour, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin. And now, discrimination against people on the basis of their race, ethnicity, class, colour, religion, sex, age, disability, or national origin, is illegal.
The PPP constituted the first working-class Government of national unity in 1953, pulling from all racial, ethnic, and class groupings. Today, the PPP/C remains an active contributor to advancing diversity management and the building of national unity, racial unity, and working people’s unity. A sample of the PPP/C’s work in race relations follows:
• The Representation of the People’s Amendment Bill, No. 1 of 2001- to forbid incitement of racial or ethnic violence or hatred.
• The Constitution (Amendment) (No. 6) Act 2001. The Amendment at Article 119A provides for the establishment of a Parliamentary Standing Committee for Constitutional Reform.
• The Constitution (Amendment) (No. 4) Act 2001 repealed and re-enacted Article 13 of the Constitution. The Amendment endorses the establishment of an inclusionary democracy to facilitate citizen participation.
• The Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2001altered Article 71 of the Constitution to engage many people in governance.
• The Constitution {Amendment} {No.2} Act 2000 created five {5} Constitution Commissions – the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC), Indigenous People’s Commission, Commission for the Rights of the Child, Commission for Human Rights, and Women and Gender Equality Commission.
• The Constitution (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 2000 amended the Constitution, including immediately after Article 212, a series of Articles from 212A through 212F, establishing the ERC, composition, a tribunal, functions, annual report, and rules.
• The Constitution amendment at Article 119B provides for the establishment of Parliamentary Sectoral Committees, providing oversight to Government policy and administration, including natural resources; economic services; foreign relations; and social services.
• Article 78B, a new insertion in the Constitution enables the electoral system below the Regional Democratic Councils to provide for the participation, representation, and accountability of individuals and voluntary groups to the voters.
• Prevention of Discrimination Act 1997 addresses prevention of discrimination on grounds of race, sex, and gender, particularly relating to employment.
• Endorsement of the optional Protocol on the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Guyana was not a signatory under the PNC regime.
• A Race Relations Committee functioned in the 1990s.
• Endorsement of the International Instruments for the protection of human rights of all Guyanese:
– International Labour Organisation (ILO) Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) Convention ILO 111
– Convention on the Rights of the Child
– Declaration of the Rights of the Child
– Declaration on the Rights of Disabled Persons
– Declaration on the Rights of Mentally Retarded Persons
– Declaration on the Elimination of all Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief.
In any event, what are the features of a society with endemic racial conflicts? In some ways, we could see one or a combination of these characteristics: genocide, segregation, forced population transfer, internal colonialism, and forced assimilation.
Multi-ethnic societies as Guyana generally exhibit some ethnic conflict, but, on the whole, management of the conflict becomes critical. But, first, policy makers need to understand the social construction and reconstruction of ethnic conflict in Guyana.
Prem Misir
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Where is Errol Arthur’s contribution to Guyana?

Dear Editor,
If there were persons in this life who didn’t know that any Tom, Dick and Harry could get a doctorate and find a job at a university, then Randy Persaud has driven home that truth vividly.
Persaud is in a strange mood these days. One can put it down to shame. The way he ran away from Guyana was indeed shameful yet hilarious.
Persaud has left it to Errol Arthur, an obscure PPP apologist in Washington D.C. where Persaud is presently hold up to do spin on his rushed exit from Guyana. The saying; “Show me your company and I tell who you are.” was never more graphically expressed than by this self-effacing PPP underling, Errol Arthur
I will meet Arthur on every point of his criticism of me in his letter of Friday, July 30.
After claiming that I wrap my criticism in personal attacks, Arthur wrote; the following; “I will eschew the bombast and noise and respond to his riposte. This is the Arthur who, like his mentor, Randy Persaud, can only use bombast and personal insults when replying to anti-government critics.
Here is Arthur writing in his first letter on me (KN, July 26); “I would not expect Kissoon to disclose a CV that is as long as the much shorter Abary Creek – one as short as a ‘four foot’ in Hague backdam” I will let readers judge who gets personal in this exchange.
Not to mention in his first letter (July 26), he derogates my ability to be a university lecture. Arthur wants to know if like him and Randy Persaud, I didn’t run away too by working in Grenada. Held up in Washington D.C. for the past 50 years, Arthur has lost track global geography.
I will tell Arthur about where Grenada is and what I was doing there. Grenada is an integral part of a piece of territory where I was born.
It is called CARICOM. Grenada and Guyana are part of the same evolution, concept and space. I worked in Grenada as part of a massive Guyanese movement to deepen freedom in the Caribbean.
The list included Christopher Ram, the sister of Bonita Bone-Harris, the brother of Walter Rodney, the sister of Haslyn Parris and hundreds more.
On this score I will remind Arthur that President Desmond Hoyte worked in Grenada, Ian Mc Donald comes from Trinidad, Hamilton Green was once married to a close relative of the Jamaican PM P. J. Patterson.
I could go on with literally thousands of such examples. One hopes that unlike Persaud, Arthur knows what I mean by these examples
Arthur wants to know if Pat Rodney, Hugh Chomondeley and Fred Wills didn’t run away too. Here is Arthur egregiously trying to justify why types like him and Persaud fled Guyana more than 30 years ago.
Pat Rodney’s husband was assassinated and Barbados offered her and her family refugee status. Hugh Chomondeley lives in Guyana and is contributing to the media landscape in meaningful ways. Fred Wills served the bar for decades then became a Cabinet Minister and left Guyana in his older age due to medical reasons. None of the three fled. In a shameless way, Arthur vicariously fits himself into the body of other Guyanese who left and tells readers about their contributions.
So he substitutes Errol Arthur for “us” and “we” never telling us about what Errol Arthur (and his mentor Randy Persaud) did for Guyana.
Arthur reminds me of my friend, Peter Jailall who returns every two years and gives voluntary teaching. He mentions a project by Salome Osbourne. But where is the effort of Errol Arthur and Randy Persaud who he willingly writes on behalf?
Here is Arthur in his own words, “We take our Guyanese citizen seriously.” By “we,” Arthur means he and Persaud too. Arthur left 50 years ago. Persaud left 40 years ago.
They have made no contribution to this country since. There are great Guyanese immigrants all over the world. I certainly would not include Arthur and Persaud on the list
Here is Arthur again in his own words. I would ask readers to remember his accusation that I get personal; “Kissoon can start by publishing his one page presentation which he delivered at the historical conference much to the utter embarrassment of his peers.”
I presented a summary of a paper that offers a comparative analysis of all of the Guyanese presidents much to the applause of the audience. But I know where Arthur got that scurrilous remark from.
He repeats what he read on a pro-government, pro-Jagdeo blog run by Kwame Mc Koy, who incidentally was the boss of Randy Persaud when the latter worked in the press section of the Office of the President
Arthur wants to know why my academic profile has not been more productive at UG. Arthur wouldn’t understand what Third World poverty is and how it affects the totality of life in any country. But perhaps he does. He says Randy Persaud teaches at one of the top universities in the US.
It would be nice if he can tell us why it is one of the best and why UG is not among the high-ranking ones in the world. I can give him a partial answer.
When his mentor, Randy Persaud was being given a tour of UG, he shouted out in my presence; “God they can’t paint this place.”
Arthur lives in Washington D. C. where the American University is. I would kindly ask if he can tell me if it is at present in need of a coat of paint.
It is abominable ignorance of any Guyanese citizen who doesn’t know about the state of the Guyanese economy and how it has devastated UG. It was no other than President Jagdeo in declaring open the Centre for Information Technology that used the word, “atrocious” to describe the non-existent labs at UG. A Government’s request to the Caribbean Development for $600M to restart the labs was turned down. UG’s School of medicine utilizes the labs at the Georgetown Hospital.
I can hardly control my emotions in replying to someone who doesn’t know about the state of UG and the shape of the Guyanese economy.
Finally, Arthur said the last time he saw Randy Persaud he was teaching graduate students.
He didn’t say which country so I thought it was UG. I then made some enquires at UG and was told they don’t have a staff member by that name. So who is Persaud giving his service to? Is it Grenada?
If it is then Persaud can be assured that he and Errol Arthur will now have my respect and I humbly ask forgiveness.
If it is not Guyana or Grenada, then Arthur should stop referring to himself as a Guyanese because he and Persaud are not.
Frederick Kissoon

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