Do the visiting UNASUR leaders know about tropical fascism in Guyana?

Nov 26, 2010 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

I know; I absolutely know that visiting leaders in any country read the newspapers of the territory in which they are guests. They read to assess the particular event that brought them there in the first place. There is no exception to this rule. Whether in sports, war or politics, foreign leaders as guests in another state read the newspapers and look at television to see and read what has been reported on them.
Against this background, I am penning this essay to let the South American Presidents know that Guyana is not a democracy.
The term academics use to describe states like Guyana, Pakistan, Venezuela and Russia among others is elected dictatorship. Pioneering this theory has been the US scholar, Fareed Zakaria. Zakaria, first propounded his theory in an article in Foreign Affairs (Nov/Dec 1997) in which he argued that a government can come to power through the process of free elections but can degenerate into a dictatorship because after the democratic process of election is completed, the legitimately elected leaders fail to consolidate constitutional liberalism, which is where the essence of rights and freedoms lay.
In other words, democratic elections can lead to dictatorship which we never conceptualized of in the past. This is what has happened in identical fashion in Singapore, Malaysia, Guyana, Venezuela and Russia.
Later, Zakaria turned his Foreign Affairs article into a book. I hope all the Presidents that are here in Guyana today have read some parts of Zakaria’s seminal work that propelled him into fame.
Today in political theory, no scholar will be that myopic to posit the existence of democracy without constitutional liberalism. And this is what has happened in Guyana with the election victories of the ruling party. It is outside the scope of a short newspaper column to offer an elucidation of Zakaria’s thesis.
This will take up too much space and prevent the presentation of facts on Guyana’s dictatorship with strong overtones of tropical fascism.
Here are some facts for the UNASUR leaders to chew on in their hotel rooms tonight. I would like to ask any of these Presidents if their population would accept a continuation of their rule if they had committed the allegations made against the President of Guyana (22 months ago) by what all Guyana believed was his legal spouse at the time.
Mr. Jagdeo’s wife told the Guyanese people that over an eight-year period while they were living together as man and wife, the President refused to sign the marriage documents that would make the union legal.
While this was going on, the young lady carried Mr. Jagdeo’s name and the designation of “First Lady.” For eight years, Mr. Jagdeo led the nation of his country to believe he was legally married.
I need not take up space with details of terrible allegations of mistreatment made against the President by his common-law partner. The President has not offered a comprehensive rebuttal to date.
My point to the South American Presidents who are reading this is simple – would a serving President survive such a scandal in his nation? My answer is no. This can only happen in Guyana.
Secondly, evidence in two US criminal trials reveal that top members of the Guyana Government were involved in an ongoing relationship with a deadly drug baron who is now a convicted felon in the US serving 15 years in jail.
Sordid details emerged in those court cases that reveal that this drug lord was encouraged by powerful political elites to commit dastardly crimes of violence and murder. The British and Canadian Governments have urged the Guyana Government to hold an independent inquiry into this phantasmagoria of Mephistophelian violence in which hundreds lost their lives by extra-judicial executions.
Which South American country has one radio station only? The answer is Guyana and it is owned by the state. Doesn’t this tell you about the fascist nature of the rulers in this land? Guyana does not have a Freedom of Information Act. Guyana does not have a fundamental institution of freedom and justice that is ensconced in all former British colonies – the Ombudsman. Guyana does not have a Human Rights Commission. In Guyana, the Government decides on the budget of the Elections Commission and the very people who control the government contest elections as candidates.
Eight gold miners were brutally murdered at a remote camp. Detailed examination of the geography and the impassibility of the terrain suggest the presence of state security forces. There has been no inquiry. Welcome to Guyana! Welcome to fascism in South America!

---

---