Vieira responds to the ERC

Feb 22, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
I refer to a letter from one Azeem Khan in both the Kaieteur News and SN over the last few days, I believe on Saturday 19, since I was told about it then.
I was out of town and then on February 24, it was published in the Kaieteur News, which is the letter I am using to respond to the diatribe.
First of all Khan does not address my allegation that as presently constituted the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) is not properly in place since the leader of the opposition has not agreed to Juan Edghill continuing as chairman of this sensitive and important body.
It’s like the situation of the Chancellor, the leader of the opposition did not agree to the appointment of Mr. Carl Singh as he is required to do under the law, and what does Mr. Jagdeo do?
He puts Justice Singh to act as Chancellor thereby slapping the leader of the opposition in the face! What does the leader of the opposition do? Nothing! Reason, there is no forum, including the courts, where he can take this matter and get a speedy resolution. I am not sure that he even tried!
And now I want to defend my statement and I quote my letter, “it is in my opinion that he [Edghill] is presiding over an organisation which is carrying out a controlled deprivation of rights against the Afro Guyanese of this nation, his own ERC have identified clear areas where Afro and mixed Guyanese as well as the Amerindians are being badly treated in this country by the PPP.
The researches of Drs Melissa Ifill and Pamela Rodney attest to this. It is in my commentary “Total Discrimination” aired in 2009. Check it out on my website www.tonyvguy.com.
Well let’s see if the commentary referred to bears this out, Dr Ifill’s study yielded the following, “Indian Guyanese far more than African, mixed or indigenous Guyanese believe that the state sector acts in a fair manner in their provision of economic opportunities to them, 80 out of 94 Indian respondents believed that the state acts in a fair manner, the corresponding figure for African respondents is 15 out of 73, while for the mixed groups the figure was 10 out of 40 and for indigenous respondents the figure was 6 out of 23” end quote.
Mr. Editor I want to remind everyone that these studies were contained in documents which the ERC presented to me in parliament in 2009, so these are the ERC’s own facts and figures.
Incredibly notwithstanding their work, over several years prior to these studies, what we called Ethnic Relations Commission chaired Edghill, has failed miserably to correct the perceptions of the Afro, Mixed and Amerindian Guyanese, who see that the system is overwhelmingly stacked against there being any fairness to them in how this country is run. To them these are facts!
Since Mr. Khan obviously doesn’t understand this situation let me put it this way 85% of the Indo Guyanese polled believed that they were getting a fair opportunity to share in what’s going on in this country, whilst only 20.5% of the Afro Guyanese believe that the state was acting fairly on their behalf, as for mixed races only 25% believed that they were getting fair opportunities and as far as the Amerindians were concerned only 26% thought that the state was acting fairly on their behalf.
As far as Pamela Rodney’s study went in Region 4 she found that and I quote her, “an analysis of staff levels was carried out, based on a four tier structure.
The data suggests that in the public sector a higher proportion of Indo Guyanese occupies positions at the senior, middle and first levels of management than Afro Guyanese, the majority of whom occupy ancillary positions”
Here is what Ms Rodney said about the same region i.e. Region 4 about staffing in the private sector, “In the private sector, higher proportions of Africans occupy the highest categories of positions, Senior, Middle and First levels, compared to East Indians where the finding indicates the reverse.
In this [private] sector the proportions of Africans are 11%, 12% and 24% in comparison to 7.9% and 22.8% at the highest three levels. The proportions in respect of ancillary staff are 62% for East Indians and only 53% for Africans”, end quote.
Ladies and gentlemen I conclude from this that in the private sector African Guyanese can and do function at senior management levels, but not in the public sector, where they are being discriminated against and marginalised.
For Mr. Khan, I will interpret this in simpler English if that is possible, Indo Guyanese in Region 4 were occupying more senior places in public office in comparison to their numbers at the lower levels of the organisations studied, whilst in private business this was not the case, pointing to the fact that there is nothing wrong with an Afro Guyanese’s capacity to occupy the higher echelons of management in the private sector, but they were being deprived of that privilege in the public sector.
Finally I spoke to several broadcasters and it was their clear perception that the ERC was trying to prevent them from pointing out these gross inequities which exist in our society, and if these perceptions are not true, what has the ERC done to rectify them? I will tell you what you have done…Nothing! But given the fact that people affected in this country would not listen to you anyway, I understand why you have done nothing.
And it is a dangerous situation which can blow up in your face at any time Khan, so proceed merrily wallowing in denial creating dangers for others.
Anthony Vieira

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