President Jagdeo is talking, pathetic, unadulterated, incoherent, barefaced nonsense

Oct 25, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

At his latest press conference (as usual, Freddie Kissoon was mentioned only this time referred to without specific naming), President Jagdeo told the reporters (obviously this was broadcast to the entire nation) that his Government has been moving faster than other countries in “this hemisphere” on its rights agenda. I say most unambiguously that nothing Mr. Jagdeo has uttered the past five years, including calling me a man-kisser and a sleaze ball, has so enraged me than this statement.
It was barefaced nonsense in the sense that he could have clothed his observation in deceptive language. But he used the word “this hemisphere” meaning all the countries in the Caribbean, Central, South and North America. Depending how one interprets “hemisphere” it could mean the entire western world because scholars in these parts of the globe when they use the word “hemisphere” they mean the West, taking in Europe too and of which Guyana is a part. Looked at from any angle, the Guyana Government, one of the most undemocratic, and perhaps the most undemocratic administrations in this hemisphere, is being classified as one of the freest governments in these parts of the world.
Any school boy studying the use of power as part of his education will tell you that Guyana is an elected dictatorship. For me, the Guyana Government has gone beyond elected dictatorship and has incorporated into its arsenal of hegemonic control elements of fascism. There isn’t a head of Government in the entire Western hemisphere that would have survived in office given what Varshnie Singh, the common-law wife of President Jagdeo had accused him of. To prove that we are a failed state and a banana republic of the lowest kind, Mr. Jagdeo has refused to comment on the accusations and to date has not explained why he wasn’t legally married.
It is interesting to note that when Mr. Jagdeo referred to “rights” agenda, he means the rights of his government not the nation. The right to sell prized, public lands at giveaway prices but not to working class citizens but to the wealthy strata. The right to give concessions to investors who are friends that are not backed by law. The right to award “engineers” to build an expensive road when they have not constructed even a mile of road anywhere in the world. The right to refuse to tell the population who are the investors that are building a hotel complex in Kingston. We could go on but let’s look at other dimensions of Mr. Jagdeo’s “rights” agenda.
At that press conference, Mr. Jagdeo referred to the Judicial Review Bill and specifically mentioned that it was passed with opposition support. Mr. Jagdeo can gloat about that because in Guyana we have a donkey opposition in Parliament. Guyana’s parliamentary opposition must be the most asinine in the world. There are already on the statute books many of the contents of the Judicial Review Bill. They are not adhered to in Guyana because the Government is a dictatorship. You can have the most phenomenal laws that allow for the operationalization of perfect freedom but if the state machinery or the forces that control the state do not recognize what are on the statutes, then you don’t have freedoms.
Part of the wider net of judicial review is the role of the Ombudsman. There is no Ombudsman in this land. Part of judicial review is the Public Service Appellate Tribunal. There isn’t one in Guyana. We have a Constitution in Guyana. A school boy can read it and see that a two/thirds majority in Parliament has to give life to the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC). That hasn’t happen but the ERC is alive and doing nonsense all over Guyana in support of the Government. Where are the rights agenda of Mr. Jagdeo’s Government when the CCJ found his Government guilty of contempt of court in the cement case and spared his Attorney-General a jail term?
Mr. Jagdeo is entering twelve years of presidential power, yet unlike the hemispheric countries that Jagdeo referred to, there is no Freedom of Information Act and Guyana has only one radio station. Mr. Jagdeo can boast about his “rights” agenda because the donkey opposition in Parliament allows the Government to brag about its “democratic record.” Imagine, this donkey opposition sits in Parliament and praises legislation introduced by a law officer who told the whole of Guyana that he is man who is given to doing illegal things. Come the next election, I rather vote for a real donkey rather than our donkey opposition.

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