A channel to educate or indulge in PPP propaganda?

Mar 20, 2011 AFC Column, Features / Columnists

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The Alliance For Change is very perturbed by the revelation of Dr. Roger Luncheon that there has been movement towards the assignment of a part of the spectrum for the transmission of a planned 24-hour so-called education channel.
The media was moreover informed that contracts are being signed and that there was a presentation by the Ministry of Education in relation to this planned TV channel.
The AFC wishes to state here that this is a clumsily assembled subterfuge, intended to hoodwink gullible Guyanese as to the real object of this new initiative.
Mr. Luncheon told the media that the unused hours of the 24-hour TV station could be made available to advertisers.
The AFC believes, as another newspaper editorialised recently, that: “Undoubtedly such spaces would be populated by the known supporters of the government and the coterie of cronies and sycophants it now attracts with subliminal messages playing up the attributes of the government.”
Moreover, “this is shameful and indefensible. It presents the government in the grotesque light that it has come to comfortably inhabit.
It has absolutely no intention before the expiration of its term to permit other sections of society, whose fealty it could not be sure of, to occupy the airwaves. This is undemocratic governance.”
The AFC is of the view that this is another tangible manifestation of the sordid authoritarianism practised by the current administration.
It is a woeful situation where the current rulership appears to be divorced from any consciousness as to what are the norms, conventions and practices of democratic governance.
To emphasize and underscore what is being posited here, the following ought to be noted. Last December, Chief Justice (ag) Ian Chang, in a High Court ruling, ordered that the National Frequency Management Unit (NFMU) speedily grant broadcast licences to those who want to broadcast in Linden and in Region Ten.
Lindeners, Norman Chapman and Mortimer Yearwood, had taken the PPP Government to court for the non-issuance of private television licences and radio licences.
Chang ruled that the rights of citizens under Article 146 of the Constitution cannot be abridged based on an agreement made between President Bharrat Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin.
Chapman and Yearwood had moved to the High Court, prior to the 2006 General Elections, claiming that their fundamental rights were being breached by their not being able to have radio or TV broadcasts other than from state-owned radio and television.
To date, it should be noted, the rulership has displayed scant regard for the sagacity and verdict of Justice Chang.
In 2003, President Jagdeo and Opposition Leader Robert Corbin, by means of a signed communiqué, had agreed that no new licences would be granted until broadcast legislation has been enacted. The process should have taken a year.
The AFC is of the view that the failure of the Government to enact a just and equitable body of Broadcast legislation and FOI legislation is the central debacle of which this present issue is an offshoot.
This is why the AFC some weeks ago held a peaceful picketing exercise outside of the Parliament expressing our explicit disapproval of the Government’s sloth, apathy and incompetence in this regard.
It should be noted here that a Broadcasting Bill and a Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill were developed by the AFC through the efforts of Khemraj Ramjattan and Raphael Trotman.
The latter was critiqued by the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative headquartered in India, and updated accordingly.
Because of the PPP’s hegemonic status and approach in the Parliament, such progressive initiatives of the AFC have been sadly stymied.
Also, it was reported in the Kaieteur News of November 10, 2010, that Maja Daruwala, the CHRI Director had written to this PPP/C Government reminding that Article 146 of the Constitution of Guyana includes the freedom to receive and communicate ideas and information without interference as a part of the broader right to freedom of expression.
As he then said, “Yet these commitments cannot be said to be practically realised without the implementation of an effective and legally enforceable mechanism that fully protects the right to access information and it is for this reason I am writing”.
The AFC will continue to actively champion the cause of Freedom of Information and an equitable, regulated distribution of the spectrum as provided by a modern Broadcasting Bill.
This activism is premised on the conviction as expressed by John Stuart Mill that liberty of opinion is conducive to the discovery of new truth.
It ought to be emphasized that surrounding the PPP’s intransigence with regard to FOI and Broadcasting legislation is its inherent Bolshevik discomfiture with divergent and critical views.
We have seen this manifested in the public harassment and humiliation of established Government critics namely Mr. Christopher Ram and Mr. Freddie Kissoon, and recently our own Mr. Sasenarine Singh, among many others.
We have seen the local media being deemed the new opposition because of its critical approach and we have seen (through the examples of the Chronicle and NCN) the sycophantic and intellectually comatose journalism the PPP in indeed comfortable with.
Divergent and critical voices, however, are an integral component of the democratic and liberal tradition.
In our Action Plan, it is stated explicitly that the AFC will: 1. Dismantle Government control of the media and the regulation thereof by a Broadcasting Legislation, and 2.
Encourage the accessibility of information to members of the public through the enactment of the Freedom of Information Law.
This it will do within the first year in office. Both have already been tabled in Parliament by the AFC.

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