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Boycott the next general elections!

Sep 27, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

The CARICOM area, even Jamaica with its high level of interpersonal violence, is generally a placid political arena. But in all the CARICOM countries there would have been turbulent responses if what takes place here on a daily basis should occur there. I contend that in stable, quiet Barbados, the opposition would have made disconcerting noise if Barbados had descended to the pit of legal and moral degeneracy that we see in Guyana.
I challenge anyone in this world to tell me in which CARICOM country an Attorney-General would have survived if he had told the media; “When I hear people taking about a Minister doing illegal things I thought it was me they were referring to because I am a man given to doing those things.” In no CARICOM country, the PM would have retained power if for four years he led the nation to believe the country had a First Lady when in fact there was no legal marriage.
In Guyana, we are dreaming of changes. We are hoping everyday that the Government gets into impassable tracks and is weakened. But we want other nations to pressure the Guyana Government for us. It won’t happen. This is not the way the life works.
All around the world, people will talk about Guyana when they read about opposition street protests and the boycott of parliament. They will wonder what is going on when they read about writs in court trying to stop ruling politicians from pursuing political, ethnic and social nastiness. No one is going to believe that Guyana is an elected dictatorship when they see a happy opposition laughing and hugging Government Ministers in the Parliament. More importantly, no government in the world is going to exert subtle squeeze on the Jagdeo presidency for terrible governance if it doesn’t start in Guyana itself.
The people and opposition groups were thrown a life-line when the British and Canadian Governments told the United Nations that the Guyana administration must order an inquiry into the extra-judicial cabals that operated with immunity and impunity and left a death toll of hundreds and hundreds. Many will wonder why the US didn’t support the call. The US is patiently waiting for the commission to begin its work. It will play its part in the supply of evidence. We the Guyanese people have tolerated a form of degeneracy that no other modern population would with regards to the Roger Khan empire.
All over the world, including the mighty US, there are drug barons who live openly because proof is not there to arrest them. No civilized society can jail suspects without evidence. In the case of Guyana, the State made an alliance with one of these narcotics kingpins. It is unheard of in modern times. In some countries, right here in CARICOM (the Bahamas), there have been allegations of Heads of Government taking money from barons.
But Guyana stands out as an egregious, infamous, degenerative case of the power elites having an interlocking directorship with a notorious cocaine lord. In that confluence, massive deaths occurred and one of the central actors was given a diplomatic posting as if to tell the world that you can go to hell. In which country that can happen without national protests.
Raphael Trotman of the Alliance for Change has now decided to up the tempo. He opines that the forthcoming elections should be boycotted if there is no international commission into the usage the Government of Guyana made of the killing squads nicknamed the phantoms.
This is the only pathway facing the opposition forces and they should meet with increasing exigency to anaylse the ensuing modalities. My opinion is that they should tie the boycott to a number of other pathologies which should definitely include the marriage controversy. ACDA’s demand for a poll abstention to strategize on constitutional change for inclusive governance should b embraced too.
What happens if the boycott comes off? The PPP as the only contestant will retain power. But Guyana will never be the same. The opposition activists will be forced to take off their pin-strips and go into the streets with their placards.
They will be forced to travel to distant lands and appeal for intervention as the PPP and WPA did when Forbes Burnham ruled. Labour and church leaders will have to be decisive in their responses. The business community will be pushed to take a stand because such a precarious situation will leave them suspended. The nation is swimming in a pool of toxic waste in Guyana. The poison, sooner than later, will kill off this country. Mr. Trotman’s suggestion makes more than just sense.

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