What about the bauxite workers Mr. President?

May 20, 2011 Letters

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Dear Editor,
The Kaieteur News article captioned, “Govt. promises $300M in severance to Diamond Estate workers”, (05/18/11) offers yet another example of “separate and unequal treatment”.
The article reports that the President, Mr. Bharrat Jagdeo, told Diamond Sugar Estate workers that the Government of Guyana will intervene, on behalf of GuySuCo, and provide $300M for their severance pay package. I am quite sure, like every hard working Guyanese, that the sugar workers were very happy to hear this pronouncement.
However, I know that these workers might be asking the very question that every other decent minded Guyanese will be asking; the question of when will the President meet with, our fellow brothers and sisters in the Bauxite Industry to make similar intervention on RUSAL’s behalf?
These workers are also embroiled in an apparent unending labour dispute which has put them on the bread line for a protracted period of time. Doesn’t President Jagdeo feel their pain, doesn’t he see the need to ‘render assistance’ in this situation? According to Mr. Jagdeo, he decided to make the GoySuCo intervention because he wanted to avoid the issue “lasting forever” and that the government and GuySuCo need people to work. Failing to act in the bauxite workers interest will signal to Guyanese that the President can care less if their issue “last forever” he would also be signaling to Guyanese that the PPP/C government do not need these people to work. What other message can Mr. Jagdeo’s action send? I believe that it is in actions like these which seek to provoke, foster or confirm the belief that there is rampant discrimination or unequal treatment of citizens.
One looking at the racial composition of these two categories of workers might, unfortunately, be compelled to conclude that the unequal treatment is rooted in this obvious difference. A difference which speaks to the fact the GuySuCo workers are primarily Indo-Guyanese and perceived as PPP/C supporters, while the RUSAL workers are predominantly Afro-Guyanese and perceived as PNCRites. The President and government’s action to bail out GuySuCo workers without any attempt to relieve the burden of their RUSAL counterparts only serves to reinforce and identify how real discrimination is, in Guyana.
The Prime Minister, Mr. Samuel Hinds, in a highly convoluted piece of propaganda asks, where the discrimination is, he demanded specific examples. I wish to invite Mr. Hinds to take off his goggles and look at what transpired at Diamond Secondary School on 05/17/11, this is an “oversized discrimination” that even Stevie Wonder can see. I am quite sure that the sugar workers left that meeting asking, what about the Bauxite workers.
The $300 million is Guyanese tax dollars, to which the bauxite workers also contributed, so why can’t they too benefit?
It is sad that the government and President continue to promote the idea of “separate and unequal treatment” at a time when the people are demanding an end to this destructive dogma. It would have been a turning moment in Guyana’s history if the Diamond Sugar Estate workers had challenged the President to also, put food on the table” of their brothers and sisters in the bauxite industry, I am hopeful though that such a day will come. It is time we too become our brothers’ keepers, we can no longer be selfish, and those who are foolish to think that Guyana can prosper with separation and alienation have not learnt the lessons of history.
As a people we need to defy those who continue to use their executive office to
boldly and subtly promote the idea of separate and unequal. We cannot accept the government’s anticipated defence of “who produce more” and contribution to GDP, the fact is both entities are in crisis, as the President so aptly pointed out in his address to the Diamond Sugar workers. It therefore, means that any bailing out of one set of workers to the neglect of the other is nothing short of discrimination.
While many advance that this recent GuySuCo announcement is an election stunt, to keep the sugar workers in their “back pocket”, it is also a stunt which is creating a huge wedge amongst a people. The talk of bridging a racial divide, and touting “serving in the interest of all people” amount to nothing but sheer empty rhetoric, when one looks at what unfolds before our very eyes.
What is unfortunate is that the President and government could care less as to how their action is viewed, and this indicates an attitude of “we in charge”, a highly dictatorial position. More than that, the government’s attitude seems to indicate that they are prepared to promote their narrow political agenda at the expense of racial and ethnic co-operation and unity. It is all about pulling elections stunt, and not about country first.
I am convinced that most of us, Guyanese, are decent people yearning to see the day when national interest and unity will once again triumph, partisan political motives and individual interest. We therefore, I am sure, will not fall prey to their deceitful tactics.
This latest action by the President and Government of Guyana emphasises the extent of racial discrimination and oppression in Guyana. I invite the Ethnic Relations Commission (ERC) to examine this particular matter; to refuse to do same would be to support the theory that the ERC might in fact be a toothless political puddle.
Lurlene Nestor

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