BUXTON: ONLY ONE EXAMPLE OF THE PPP’S MISGUIDED POLICIES AND CRIMINALISATION

Sep 05, 2010 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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“Historic” VISIT
After being picketed, when he sought to hold a reception at State House for visiting overseas Buxtonians, President Jagdeo finally visited Buxton after almost 11 years in office. During that period, he spent more time touring the world, including dozens of visits to Queens, New York. The President obviously assumed that the people of Buxton had forgotten that it is his Administration, through a systematic and centrally directed campaign that criminalised their village and had them labeled as criminals. It is this very Jagdeo administration that discriminated against this and other non-PPP support villages and, since the 2005 flood, continually refused to allocate resources for infrastructural development. As the Election season draws near, the PPP, as they did recently in Linden, believes that these belated interventions and allocation of funds just before elections will erase from the peoples’ memory the years of neglect and discrimination they have experienced under the PPP administration.
PROPHETIC WORDS
In October 2002 when the PPP unleashed its phantom gangs upon Guyana, (as admitted by Roger Khan in the US Court and in a public Advertisement, which has, to date, not been refuted by the state), the late Leader of the Opposition and PNCR Leader, Mr. Desmond Hoyte, spoke some prophetic words:
“Buxton is only a symbol, an overt symbol, of the anger and the resentment that has infected all the villages along the Coast. Everything you are suffering, all the problems you are enduring are being suffered by the villages of Victoria, Plaisance,  BV and Belladrum – for example.  So that it is no use trying to suppress Buxton unless they are able to suppress all the black villages in this country.  The suppression of Buxton would not eradicate the root causes of the disaffection that is pervasive in all the marginalized villages because other Buxtons will arise throughout the length and breadth of this country.
My friends, the problem at Buxton is not going to be solved by guns and force; cannot be solved by guns and force.  What is required is a programme of genuine social transformation that would give hope to the communities and serve as a model for the development for the other communities.”
D. HOYTE, S.C., M.P.
10 October 2002
Eight years later, in responding to the concerns of residents about the stigma now associated with the village, President Jagdeo hypocritically stated that, “We need to collectively work at removing this perception wherever it exists.” Jagdeo seemed to have been suffering from amnesia as he single-handedly contributed to the negative perception of that village and the stigma now associated with it. He feigns to have now awakened to the economic plight of the village, despite it was he who vetoed every proposal to place that village on a sound economic footing.
THE SPECIFIC PROPOSALS
The late Leader of the PNCR, Mr Hugh Desmond Hoyte, had submitted detailed proposals as a model for the revitalisation of the economy of Buxton and other depressed East Coast Demerara villages. The PPP has developed marked competence in rewriting history, consequently, it is necessary to print the exact words of Mr. Hoyte when he proposed a development programme for that village in October 2002.
“And it is this programme that I will propose to the government, if they have any sense, a programme which will resolve the problems of Buxton and of similar villages with similar problems along the Coast.  If they were wise, the government would urgently discuss this programme with you and begin, along with you, to implement it.  What is required is a socio-economic transformation plan which the government must develop in consultation with you, in cooperation with you, to produce a well-coordinated action plan for the economic and social transformation of Buxton.  We are not talking about tinkering; we are not talking about filling a hole in one road and digging a little trench there; we are not talking about that.  We are talking about a total plan for the rehabilitation and improvement of the entire catchment area.  And the objective of the plan must be to restore your production base which has been allowed to decay; to rehabilitate and improve your basic infrastructure; to establish a sustainable programme of social services and re-invigorate the cultural life of the communities; to provide education; to provide employment opportunities for the villagers, especially the young people, and to lift and sustain the morale of the communities by vigorously addressing your grievances arising from the depressed state of the area so that your cultural and social and economic life can be improved dramatically.
These are the things that have to be done and I want to mention some specific projects because I have been talking in general terms.  The government must construct a check sluice and crown dam aback Buxton-Friendship and also a check sluice or check sluices at Vigilance and Annandale in the central navigation canals to serve this entire area.  They must clear and maintain the sideline dams to prevent flooding.  They must clear 400 acres of farmlands and build farm-to-market roads so you can have access to your farmlands and bring out your produce.  In the field of education and training, they must acquire the land for the Buxton Practical Instruction Centre so that the building could go up.  You know they promised to buy the land for the Practical Training Centre, but they won’t pay the owner and since they won’t pay the owner you cannot put up the building.  And they must do that and they must construct the multipurpose centre in the south of Buxton beyond this embankment road so that the people can have a centre for adult and continuing education, for cultural activities, for community meetings and for the training of young people and others.  They must reconstruct the abandoned Bladen Hall Multilateral School so that our children can have a proper decent place for their secondary education.  And they must upgrade the six mud dams into all-weather roads, and provide adequate street lighting.  They must improve the existing Health Centre by adding a delivery room, assigning trained staff and upgrading the centre to a Cottage Hospital.  These are the things they have to do if they want quiet and peace and contentment in this Buxton-Friendship area.
We have here a well and storage facilities for potable water but yet the people south of here cannot get water.  They must ensure that the people of Buxton-Friendship South have access to potable water, access which they don’t have now for no good reason.  And they must rehabilitate the abattoir which is an eyesore and a health hazard.  These are some of the specific things that they must do and you must call for so that they don’t come around fooling you and not directing their attention to your basic needs.  And you know all of these things call for supportive activities.  They must compile a list of skills available in this community and use the data for employment purposes, for organizing the people for self-employment and for mobilizing the villagers for self-improvement and community projects.  They must encourage the establishment of co-operative societies for community economic activities. And as an immediate short-term measure, organize public works to improve facilities, using local skills as far as possible.  They have to transform this community.  They have to compile information about your history, your oral history, your folklore, about your outstanding people, some of the people I referred to earlier in my discourse so that the young people could know who are there heroes and can have proper role models and not walk about in idleness as if they have just dropped out of the skies.  And we must encourage groups to read, to debate, to promote the arts and culture and above all, facilities for sporting activities.  Have you got a playing field in Buxton where the children can play cricket and football?  Have you got a centre?  No, you don’t have but Annandale has.  The things you don’t have, Annandale has.
THE COST
My friends, now the advantage of this plan is that it can serve as a model for the development of all the marginalized and depressed communities in this country.  And I believe that given political will and good faith, this plan could be completed in 36 to 48 months and its cost should be in the vicinity of $250 million, spread over that period.  Comrades, this is a small amount of money to expend given the huge returns, the huge social and economic returns that would flow from this expenditure, it is an expenditure that is worthwhile.  It would be more beneficial for the government to spend $250 million to do things which need to be done in this community than buying guns and bullets and bullet-proof vests.  The acquisition of these guns and ammunition would only result in death.  The plan we are putting forward is designed to sustain life and human well-being.”
D. HOYTE, S.C., M.P.
10 October 2002
Regrettably, it is President Jagdeo who at that time claimed that Hoyte’s proposals amounted to the holding of the Government to ransom. Instead of implementing a coherent programme, the Administration and its cohorts enabled the insertion of criminal and narco-funded gangs into Buxton. The village was garrisoned by the Security forces and its economy further destroyed. It seems that the intention, all along, was to convert the once proud and independent people of Buxton into mendicants, dependent on hand-out from the Government.
STILL NO PLAN FOR BUXTON
The PPP General Secretary’s attempt to rewrite history will not absolve them from their policy and dismal record of discrimination, marginalisation and criminalisation of Buxton and other communities and their citizens over the past years.  No amount of meandering or government propaganda will fool right thinking Guyanese.  The appropriate action for Mr. Ramotar should have been to point out to the nation how many of the issues raised by Mr. Hoyte since 2002 have been addressed by the Jagdeo Government, eight years after they were proposed.  At his recent meeting in Buxton, the President, in response to a question from a citizen, had to shamefully admit that the PPP Administration had no development plan for Buxton. The answer to Mr. Ramotar, therefore, came from the lips of his President.
The recent visit by President Jagdeo to Buxton and the public debate thereafter, has shifted the wider issue of the discriminatory policies of the PPP to a single community, giving the false impression that there are no other examples of their tarnished record around Guyana. A brief visit to the many villages in Guyana in Essequibo, West Demerara, East Coast Demerara, West Coast Berbice and Corentyne will reveal the discriminatory manner in which the PPP Administration has undertaken infrastructural and other developments in Guyana. Guyanese should therefore not be distracted by the charade over Buxton and allow themselves to be distracted from the failure of the PPP throughout Guyana. Buxton also provides a useful venue for analysis of the dismal record of the Jagdeo administration in the area of national security. But this must be left for next week. It is time, however, for the PPP General Secretary and his President to either put up or shut up.

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